August 25: It has been two years since the government purchased two sets of trains from India in order to operate the Janakpur-Jaynagar railway service. The trains that arrived in Nepal mid-September 2020 were kept covered with tents for nineteen months.

Although the government brought those trains after setting up a 35-kilometer track, it had to wait for nineteen months to operate the trains due to lack of necessary laws.

The Nepal Railway Company had problems recruiting staff members in the absence of laws related to railway service. In order to remove legal hurdles, the government introduced an ordinance for the third time and started the railway service almost five months ago. However, Nepal has been forced to pay Rs 480 million annually to India’s Konkan Railway due to lack of manpower, infrastructures and problems in human resource management.

Nepal Railway Company has to pay the amount to the Indian company for the salaries of the workers brought from India as well as repair and maintenance cost and the fee for signal change. All these expenses could have been avoided had the government made necessary arrangements within the country using domestic workers and other available means.

Nepal Railway Company Limited has to pay a minimum salary of Rs 300,000 to as much as Rs 500,000 per month to the engineers provided by Konkan Railway.  Nepali engineers, who are working in the same company, are paid around Rs 40,000 to Rs 50,000 as per the government’s pay scale.

The company is compelled to pay an annual salary of around Rs 60 million to 26 engineers and cabin crew members because it failed to produce the required manpower within the country on time.

It is more costlier for the repair and maintenance of the trains.

Nepal Railway Company’s General Manager Niranjan Jha informed that the company has to pay around Rs 120 million annually for the repair and maintenance of the trains. Likewise, the company has to pay around Rs 60 million for the signal change system. The total cost after adding expenses under other headings and including tax reaches up to Rs 480 million.

The company’s engineer Rabindra Sah says that the government needs to produce technical manpower within the country to reduce the cost of operating the trains.

Jha says that the company has so far received Rs 140 million from the government to pay Konkan Railway. He complained that the Ministry of Finance is yet to release the remaining amount.