Nepal ministers caught in fertiliser stink

This move is believed to have been endorsed at a high-level meeting between three cabinet ministers of Nepal—Home Minister Dan Bahadur Shahi, Agriculture Minister Badri Prasad Mandal and Finance Minister Madhukar Shamsher Rana—on September 8.

In Delhi, the Ministry of External Affairs is already in touch with Home, Finance and other related ministries. Sources said an investigation will be launched—a formal decision can be expected next week after inter-ministerial consultations. If proved true, they added, the matter will be taken up with Kathmandu and followed up with necessary action.

In executing this plan, the Nepalese ministers allegedly roped in a small trading company, Binayak International, owned by one Gyanendra Shrestha. The idea was to let the company’s trucks bring in the fertiliser while tacit instructions were apparently issued to customs and security officials in the area not to intercept them.

The company is said to have been given a trial order of 2,000 metric tonnes.

But the plan got foiled with Nepal’s Commission to Investigate Abuse of Authority (CIAA) deciding to act on complaints by some rival fertiliser importers. And the cover was blown when it ordered the Department of Revenue Investigation to intercept such consignments—on September 13, two Binayak International trucks carrying contraband fertiliser were intercepted.

Two days later, The Kathmandu Post revealed the plan to smuggle fertiliser from India. Stung, the Nepalese Home Minister said five days later that this was being done in his country’s interests to ensure smooth supply of fertiliser.

‘‘The plan was also aimed at discouraging private fertiliser traders, who were making unnatural profits,’’ he was quoted as saying in an interview to Nepal Television.

Fertiliser prices in Nepal are at least double that of what is available to Indian farmers. Urea, which is sold at Rs 8 per kg here, sells at exactly double the price by state-owned companies in Nepal—the market price would be 25 per cent more.

According to sources, the flow of fertiliser through the porous India-Nepal border has increased of late. The estimate is that 30-35,000 metric tonnes of fertiliser are being smuggled into Nepal, which amounts to a loss of Rs 30 crore to the Indian exchequer.