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Kathmandu, Nov 29: Nepal is paying about Rs 560,000 each month for land it is not using at the Kolkata and Haldia ports. The payments continue even though the facilities leased under the Transit Treaty with India remain unmanaged and inactive.

At Kolkata port, Nepal rents a 4,850 square foot warehouse area for which it pays INR 56,000 a month. The lease has already expired, yet the dues keep rolling. The Nepal Transit and Warehousing Company, which oversees the site, has taken no concrete steps to bring the space into use.

The situation is worse in Haldia. Nepal leases 8,985 square feet there but uses none of it. Haldia port manager Him Nath Poudel said the land could easily store coal or other goods, but it has become an open parking spot instead. The monthly rent stands at INR 300,000. Although Shyam Prasad Mookerjee Port has offered a land swap, Kathmandu has not acted on it.

Coal shipments for Nepal still arrive through Haldia, yet the leased land remains off limits for storage due to space limits. Nearby private warehouses handle coal, gypsum and other materials while Nepal’s designated plot sits idle.

Nepal’s Consul General in Kolkata, Jhakka Prasad Acharya, said both sites should be put to commercial use or released. He stressed that if Nepal cannot manage the land, the government should revisit the transit agreement or hand responsibility to someone who can pay the rent and manage it properly.

People’s News Monitoring Service