By Prem Adhikari
Pashupatinagar, Jan. 16: The immigration office established four years ago at Pashupatinagar, Ilam on Nepal’s border with India has nothing to do.
It was established to curtail illegal activities, maintain migration statistics and facilitate the arrival of tourists and was inaugurated by the then Minister for Home Affairs Ram Bahadur Thapa amidst much fanfare. Yet, it has been able to do absolutely none of those things because there is no corresponding office on the Indian side.

The lack of an Indian immigration office means that people coming to Nepal via land cannot use that border point to leave India. They have to use the Kakadbhitta border point of Jhapa.
While the Pashupatinagar office has the authority and capacity to record individuals entering the country, issue and renew visa and, during the pandemic, test people for COVID-19, it basically has no one to provide these services to as no one uses the Pashupatinagar border. Hence, the employees also sit around whole day without any work.

“We are forced to sit around idly as we have no work to do,” said Gambhir Rai, a non-gazetted first class officer at the office. “Sometimes, we are called to immigration office at Kakadbhitta to support the employees there but other than that, we have no official activities to carry out here.”

The Pashupatinagar immigration office is supposed to have six permanent employees including one officer but currently only has one non-gazetted officer and two office assistances recruited on a contract basis.
Other employees have been stationed to immigration offices elsewhere because they did not have any business here. Rewant Bhattarai, the officer at Kakadbhitta’s office, comes once a month to manage the documents.

“This situation will continue until India establishes an office on its side,” Bhattarai opined, adding, “The Ministry of Home Affairs must take the necessary initiative to make this happen.”
India had initially planned to set up an immigration office to correspond to Nepal’s office at Pashupatinagar. However, it stopped work after the outbreak of coronavirus.
Local businesses have also been asking the government to push India for the establishment of an immigration office on its side. That would allow tourists to enter Nepal via Pashupatinagar which would in turn boost the area’s economy.

Pramod Rai, president of the Suryodaya Chamber of Commerce and Industry, claimed that the lack of an immigration office across the border had been causing the government to lose out on potential revenue and asked it to hold talks with India on the matter. He also said that such an office in India would allow both sides to control illegal cross-border activities.