BIRGUNJ: The lockdown enforced to stem the spread of coronavirus has resulted in the piling of containers at Birgunj, a main trading route of Nepal.
Over 4,000 containers coming from the third countries via India have piled up at the dry port at the entry point. The containers are threefold the maximum capacity of the dry port that has the capacity of storing 1,542 containers.
And a further 1,350 containers are on their way, set to arrive soon, as informed by Animesh Kumar, managing member of Himalaya Terminal Pvt Ltd (HTPL).
HTPL is the company that operates the dry port.
Kumar told The Rising Nepal that around 180 containers were arriving at the port every day but not as many were leaving, causing the pileup.
He informed that there were 3,631 filled containers and 200 empty ones held up at the port’s customs office with 180 additional containers in the process of being unloaded from the trains.
Before the lockdown, the port used to ship out 250 to 300 containers to their destinations daily. But now, that number has dropped to 120 or at maximum, 150.
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