KATHMANDU: Electric vehicles introduced to promote eco-friendly tourism in the Lumbini region have fallen into disuse due to legal ambiguities and delays in vehicle registration.
Under the South Asia Tourism Infrastructure Development Project of the Asian Development Bank, 19 electric vehicles — including 14 vans and five buses — were provided to the Lumbini Development Fund through the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation.
The vehicles, equipped with air conditioning, disabled-friendly features, automatic doors, and card payment systems, were intended to offer efficient and environmentally friendly transportation for tourists in the sacred birthplace of Buddha.
Despite their modern features and 400 km travel capacity per charge, the vehicles have not been used as intended.
A key hurdle has been the use of white number plates instead of the green plates required for commercial passenger vehicles. Recently, an accident involving an electric van (Lu1Jha 696) prompted renewed scrutiny.
The court had issued a one-month deadline for the Fund to convert the white plates to green and begin proper operation, but the deadline has passed with no significant progress.
“Due to legal ambiguity, we were not able to use the white-plate vehicles for the intended purpose. The process has now moved forward following the court’s order,” said Siddhicharan Bhattarai, Treasurer of the Lumbini Development Fund. “We are now working on obtaining green plates to operate them as originally planned.”
According to Akramuddin Khan, coordinator of the Lumbini Bachau Mahaabhiyan, the delay undermines the very purpose for which the vehicles were donated. “The deadline has passed, but the situation remains unchanged,” he said.
In the meantime, some vehicles have reportedly sustained minor damage during limited internal use, as the Fund attempted to prevent battery deterioration from prolonged idling.
Local activists and tourism stakeholders are urging swift action to operationalize the vehicles and ensure that infrastructure meant to enhance the Lumbini experience is not wasted.
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