By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, Sept. 18: Hanumandhoka Durbar Museum has begun issuing its own ticket to foreign visitors entering the museum from Friday, separate from the one issued by Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC).
This means that international tourists will now have to buy a ticket of Rs. 300 to enter the museum in addition to a Rs. 1,000 ticket they need to purchase to enter the Hanumandhoka Durbar Square.
Sandeep Khanal, executive director of the Hanumandhoka Durbar Museum Development Committee, said that the museum was forced to mandate the purchase of a separate ticket because KMC did not provide its share from the Rs. 1,000 ticket.

The museum is entitled to 25 per cent of the total revenue collected from the Rs.1, 000 tickets. But KMC has not provided this share for the fiscal year 2019/20. This amounts to Rs. 30.3 million.
“We have repeatedly approached the Mayor about this, but he neither responded to our requests nor has he released the money,” Khanal complained, saying that the museum was forced to impose this double ticket-system because of the ignorance of KMC.

Hanumandhoka Durbar Museum is a self-sustaining institution which means that it does not get any financial support from the government. It has to completely rely on two sources of income – ticket revenue and rent collected from curio shops operating from the museum’s buildings.
But the curio shops have largely been closed since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak in the country, and the metropolis has withheld the 25 per cent share of the ticket revenue that, according to the rules, belongs to the museum.

This has brought the institution to the brink of financial crisis.
Khanal informed that the museum had informed KMC, the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation and tourism agencies about the new ticketing rule.
But Roshan Shakya, chief of Hanumandhoka Durbar Area Conservation Programme Office (HDACPO), said that KMC has not provided any instructions regarding the double ticketing system.