The Birgunj Customs Office, the country's main border checkpoint, has not been able to collect revenue as per the target in the current fiscal year. According to the data released by the Customs Office, the annual revenue collection target of this customs office in the current fiscal year is Rs 273.39 billion, but only Rs 199.40 billion has been collected by the month of Baisakh.

This is about 73 percent of the annual target. Now, to meet the target in the remaining 2 months of the fiscal year, this customs office will have to collect about Rs 73 billion in revenue. Which seems impossible.

The target of collecting revenue in Baisakh alone was Rs 23.84 billion. But only Rs 21.74 billion has been collected this month, which is about 92 percent of the monthly target.

There has also been fluctuation in daily revenue collection. Although more than Rs 1 billion in revenue has been collected on some days, it seems that the target has not been collected on most days. The items that collected the most revenue in the month of Baisakh are diesel, LP gas, petroleum products, vehicles and industrial raw materials. A large portion of the revenue has been collected from diesel and LP gas imports alone.

Chief Customs Administrator Krishna Prasad Mainali of the office said that the revenue has been affected due to the lack of an investment-friendly environment, a decrease in the import of industrial raw materials, smuggling and illegal trade, weakness in trade facilitation and problems related to MRP.

According to Mainali, industries and businesses have not been able to expand due to the lack of an investment-friendly environment in the country. He said that smuggling and illegal trade taking advantage of the open border have also become the main reason for revenue leakage. He said that the lack of trade facilitation, procedural delays at the border, transportation problems and weak infrastructure are also discouraging legal trade.