Key Takeaways:
- Two pickup trucks carrying food, water, clothes and essentials stopped at Bairgania Customs Office
- Vehicles from Kolkata, West Bengal lacked customs-duty exemption
- Food items require quarantine testing, clothing and other goods need customs clearance
- Mayor Shambhu Sah says imposing duties on disaster relief is impractical
- Trucks carry 30 sacks of rice, 50 cartons biscuits, 40 cartons water, tarpaulins, clothes, torches and more
Relief supplies collected for victims of the devastating floods and landslides in Rasuwa have been stuck on the Nepal-India border at Bairgania since Wednesday as the consignments await customs clearance.
Two pickup trucks carrying food, drinking water, clothes and other essentials from Kolkata, West Bengal were stopped at the Bairgania Customs Office in India while being brought into Nepal.
Harish Chandra Sahu of Kolkata, who helped bring the supplies, said the Nepal government had not provided a customs-duty exemption, making it difficult to clear the consignments through the Gaur customs point.
Food items require quarantine testing, while clothing and other goods must undergo customs procedures and duties.
Gaur Municipality Mayor Shambhu Sah said imposing customs duties on humanitarian assistance was neither practical nor appropriate.
"When relief is being brought for Nepali citizens, requiring customs duty does not seem practical," Sah said. "The state should identify genuine relief materials and provide customs exemption."
The two pickups are carrying 30 sacks of rice (25 kg each), 50 cartons of biscuits, 40 cartons of drinking water, two cartons of lassi, 20 sacks of puffed rice, potatoes, salt, cake, flour, chickpeas, bangles, 100 torches, eight tarpaulins and four boxes of clothes.
Those involved have urged the government to facilitate immediate entry of the supplies, warning that delays could further postpone delivery to flood-affected communities in Rasuwa.
The case has also raised questions about how relief materials brought through land routes during disasters are processed, and whether genuine humanitarian consignments can be cleared through a faster mechanism.