Following an agreement between the Customs Department and businessmen, cargo inspection resumed at major checkpoints including Birgunj from Wednesday.
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The government's decision to make the maximum retail price mandatory for imported goods has temporarily ended the deadlock at major customs checkpoints across the country.
After an agreement between the Customs Department and businessmen, goods inspection and clearance resumed at major checkpoints including Birgunj from Wednesday. A large number of trucks carrying goods were stopped at the Birgunj Customs Office for about a week and a half due to the MRP dispute. Due to the obstruction of inspection and clearance, there was a significant decline in revenue collection.
However, the problem was resolved after the Customs Department allowed importers to self-declare the MRP of the goods and to take the goods to the warehouse and affix the label.
According to the agreement, importers will have to declare the maximum retail price of the goods at the customs point. After that, arrangements have been made to sell and distribute the goods in the market only after taking the goods to their warehouse and attaching the MRP label. However, the condition that the price should be disclosed when sending them to the market will remain the same. Madhav Rajpal, Senior Vice President of the Birgunj Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said that the problem has been resolved for the time being.
Information Officer of Birgunj Customs Office Uday Singh Bista said that the inspection and clearance started from Wednesday evening after the problem was resolved. He also said that Rs 760 million in revenue was collected on Wednesday in a single day. Bista said that currently, the inspection and clearance is being done on the basis of a commitment letter from the businessmen to affix MRP labels within Nepal.
Earlier, importers had been protesting that the system of affixing MRP labels on each unit at the customs point was not practical. They had argued that the cost and time would increase excessively if the goods were unloaded and the price was affixed to each packet and the customs process would be unorganized. But after the regular revenue collection fell by more than 50 percent and more than 1,700 goods-carrying vehicles were stopped at the Birgunj customs, the government was forced to find a practical solution.
Ganesh Ghimire, head of administration at TRS Himalayan Lodge Park, the operator of the Integrated Security Checkpoint in Birgunj, said on Wednesday that around 1,000 freight vehicles passed through the checkpoint and left the premises in a single day. He said that freight vehicles at the ICP on the Indian side are also gradually entering the Birgunj ICP.
