Kathmandu, February 20

Following the request of the Vizag Port Authority to set up a permanent office of the Nepal Consulate in Vishakhapatnam, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Commerce have started talks on the matter.

The port authority has urged for the Nepal mission at Vizag to ease the official formalities for the fast delivery of Nepal-bound cargo containers arriving from third countries. Currently, the Nepali Embassy in Delhi is taking care of clearances of certain documents like import and export general manifestos to get the containers delivered from the Vizag port through the train service owned by the subsidiary of Indian Railways — Container Corporation of India.

The clearance process takes at least two weeks as Nepali Embassy is located in Delhi.

Commerce Secretary Chandra Kumar Ghimire said that establishing a consulate falls under the domain of MoFA and the two ministries have held several rounds of talks on this issue following the request from the Vizag Port Authority.

Vizag port has offered a 2,000-square feet building near the port for a temporary office and the port authority is also willing to provide land at Saligramapuram in the city to set up a permanent consulate office, as per sources.