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First private sector cargo train from India arrives in Birgunj

Kathmandu: For the first time since the revision of the Nepal-India Railway Service Agreement, a private sector cargo train arrived from India in Birgunj, a bordering town in Nepal, on Wednesday. According to the Nepal Intermodal Transport Development Committee, Hind Terminal Pvt Ltd’s one-rack cargo train arrived at the Birgunj dry port at 10:00 am. It was made possible by the revision of the railway service agreement between Nepal and India on July 9, ending the 17-year monopoly of Indian containers.

According to the revised text of the Letter of Exchange, all authorised private container train operators (both Indian and Nepali) will be able to use the Indian Railways network to transport freight containers for Nepal’s imports and exports, putting an end to the monopoly of the Indian government-owned Container Corporation of India (CONCOR). The agreement allows India’s railway freight services to transport goods to and from locations other than Raxaul/Birgunj.

The train carrying 90 containers of food supplies from Haldiya arrived at the dry port on Wednesday, according to the Committee’s Executive Director, Ashish Gajurel. Gajurel added that Hind Terminal Pvt Ltd would import cargo twice a week, while four additional companies have expressed interest in freight transportation. It is possible to increase the number of cargo companies considering that the private sector has been allowed to manage cargo trains.

In 2004, the railway service agreement signed between Nepal and India had set the monopoly of the Container Corporation of India, a sister organisation of Indian Railways. Experts and officials say this agreement has opened up new horizons of cooperation in Nepal-India trade and transit sectors as Nepal and India plan to extend more cross-border rail networks.

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As per the Transit Treaty between Nepal and India, Indian private companies can transport cargo from Visakhapatnam and Kolkata ports as well as other Indian ports closer to major customs points in western and far-western Nepal for third-country trade. Currently, rail cargo can only be transported on the Kolkata-Raxaul/Birgunj route. Another major takeaway of the revised railway service agreement is that all types of wagons that can carry freight on Indian Railways’ network within India can also be used to transport freight to and from Nepal. In the past, this facility was only available to certain kinds of wagons.

Specifically, the liberalisation will lower transportation costs for automobiles transported over special wagons that were not listed in the 2004 railway service agreement, since they did not exist back then.

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