Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa has instructed the Nepal Police and the Armed Police Force (APF) to not stop trucks coming from India carrying industrial raw materials.
Minister Thapa took a minister-level decision to that regard on May 10 citing written and verbal complaints that traffic police has been giving unnecessary problems by checking Indian vehicles. The Home Ministry wrote to the police and APF headquarters on May 16 instructing them to not stop Indian vehicles without coordinating with the regulatory bodies.
The ministry, however, has told the security bodies to make necessary arrangements if the regulatory bodies concerned request so.
The instruction will be valid for 22 districts in the plains, according to the ministry. Spokesperson at the ministry Ram Krishna Subedi said the instruction had to be given as the security agencies were going beyond their jurisdiction to stop vehicles carrying goods.
Police have been checking the vehicles while passing through the customs points and to control import of goods using fake customs declaration forms. Traffic police, similarly, has been checking those vehicles for load and punishing those carrying beyond the permitted level.
Spokesperson Subedi pointed that it is the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport's responsibility to measure load carried by the vehicles, and the Finance Ministry's to control smuggling.
The Home Ministry, however, has yet to inform the two ministries about the instruction. Subedi stated that the ministry will write to the two ministries as it may not have copied the original letter to those ministries.
He stressed that the sole purpose of the instruction is to stop unnecessary hassles for vehicles carrying raw materials for industries.
Police used to stop vehicles and hand them over to the Department of Revenue Investigation (DRI) if declaration forms were not accurate or fake. The industrialists were unhappy saying the DRI took many days to settle the issue after the vehicles were taken there.
They have been complaining that such hassles delays transportation of raw materials ultimately affecting operation of the industries while they also have to pay the trucks even for the days when they were kept on hold.
Police said that the vehicles carrying other goods will be checked as usual as the ministry's instruction is only valid for raw materials. "We have been told to not hassle the big vehicles carrying raw materials. We will check others," SP with Rupandehi Police Hridaya Thapa told Setopati.
