In early 20th century, Prime Minister Chandra Shamsher Rana wanted to build a railway from the Indian border north towards Kathmandu to reduce the costs of transporting food and other supplies.&nbsp; It would also facilitate travel of thousands of Hindu pilgrims from India, who had to walk up to five days to reach Kathmandu to celebrate Shivaratri and other religious festivals. The plan was to bring a railway up to Dhursing, where a ropeway to Kathmandu had just been constructed. This would avoid the need to carry supplies on the backs of porters from Birganj to Bhimphedi then over Chandragiri Pass to the Valley. However, the costs of building a railway to Dhursing were found excessive because of the steep grades trains would encounter north of Amlekhganj.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025100404100_ffac8f6a5b41d2727ae92690ccced8da5d2684cc88d933c75b9c90f555956757.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2025100404100_ffac8f6a5b41d2727ae92690ccced8da5d2684cc88d933c75b9c90f555956757" data-rendition-name="original" width="1554" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Life and times of Nepal Government Railway NT"> <figcaption>Mahabir, a unique Garratt locomotive, built in Manchester, England in 1932. Collection: RICHARD PELHAM</figcaption> </figure>  A Calcutta firm Martin &amp; Company surveyed and built the Nepal Government Railway (NGR) in one year at a cost of approximately 1.1 million Indian rupees. The 30 lb narrow-gauge rails, 2’ 6” apart, extended 29 miles from Raxaul, India to Birganj, Parwanipur, Jitpur, Simara and Amlekhganj. Prime Minister Chandra, his wife, other Rana officials, and King Tribhuvan attended the dedication ceremony in Raxaul on 16 February 1927. It was only the second time in history a Nepal king had stepped foot on foreign soil. The NGR began service with two steam locomotives, 4-6-0 tanks (indicating wheel arrangements) built in Leeds, England in 1926. They were given the auspicious names of Pashupati and Guhyeshwari. As traffic increased, the NGR later purchased Goraknath (in 1928), Mahabir, Krishna, Sita-Ram, and lastly Sri Bishnu (in 1949).  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025100404100_864b56ea45c837a9b4110bccb2df09a0011b2e2ad20202b3f9d9316d2b4fdce5.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2025100404100_864b56ea45c837a9b4110bccb2df09a0011b2e2ad20202b3f9d9316d2b4fdce5" data-rendition-name="original" width="1523" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Life and times of Nepal Government Railway NT"> <figcaption>Gorarkhnath on a bridge north of Birganj in 1958. Photo: DEREK CROSS</figcaption> </figure>  Railway engines embodied a religious-cultural significance besides their secular importance as mechanisms of transportation. These engines later ran on the Janakpur Railway as well. A British citizen, W S Pedrick was the NGR’s chief officer from 1927 to 1941. Tek Jung Thapa then became NGR general manager until 1959, when Kulbir Singh KC replaced him. Devendra Singh KC took over in 1963. A Bengali, Radha Charan Bhattarchaya, lived in Birganj and worked as an accountant and auditor for the NGR for 25 years.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025100404104_1d7e97674ebac55bf3634ce9e44fc3af617b1bac9cb7fc818278329f44bf7e62.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2025100404104_1d7e97674ebac55bf3634ce9e44fc3af617b1bac9cb7fc818278329f44bf7e62" data-rendition-name="original" width="1051" height="1297" loading="lazy" alt="Life and times of Nepal Government Railway NT"> <figcaption>Sardar Tek JungThapa, the Nepal Government Railway (NGR) general manager for many years. Photo: ANIL JUNG THAPA</figcaption> </figure>  The opening of the Tribhuvan Rajpath and the advent of air cargo services in the late 1950s took traffic away from the NGR. During 1956-57, the NGR carried 255,000 passengers and 60,000 tons of freight and made an estimated profit of 800,000 Indian rupees. By 1963-64, the railway transported only 66,450 passengers, 30,070 tons of goods and for the first time in its history operated at a loss of 151,000 rupees. Passenger service ended in June 1965, and all freight trains were suspended on 13 April 1968. A sporadic 5km 'freight shuttle service' between Birganj and Raxaul continued until the late 1980s.&nbsp; The NGR played an important role in Nepal’s commercial life. During 1937-38, the top four products imported into Nepal by value were cloth, iron, yarn, and cigarettes. Since Kathmandu was the largest market for imports, many of those and other products were loaded on NGR freight cars at Raxaul and transported to Amlekhganj, then by lorry to Dhursing, finally by ropeway to Kathmandu.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025100404100_e3157ef1cd2ce312902d40178aa9d35cab1b9b23dfc0d0f37e77ce59b3df756d.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="2025100404100_e3157ef1cd2ce312902d40178aa9d35cab1b9b23dfc0d0f37e77ce59b3df756d" data-rendition-name="original" width="1619" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Life and times of Nepal Government Railway NT"> <figcaption>Sita-Ram at Amlekhganj in 1958. Photo: DEREK CROSS</figcaption> </figure>  Passenger traffic also was impressive. During World War II, the NGR did a booming business transporting Nepal Army troops to India for garrison duty and services abroad. For example, 6,000 soldiers from two Nepali brigades rode the NGR during March 1940. At the end of the war, Maharaja Juddha Shamsher stated that Nepal had sent 148,500 troops to India at British request. Many of those men rode the NGR on their return to Nepal in 1945. A 1936 document in Nepal’s National Archives shows the NGR had nearly 170 employees that year. Annual salaries for those in the General Department ranged from 1,200 Indian rupees (a medical officer) to nine sweepers at 102 rupees. In the Traffic Department, five station managers each received 384 rupees, while four trolley men got 132 rupees. The Engineering Department supervisor’s salary was 1,800 rupees, while eight guards were paid 120 rupees each. Locomotive drivers took home 300 rupees, firemen 204 rupees. The Ranas had outlawed unions, but with regime change in 1951, railway workers went on strike and submitted a list of demands to the government for higher salaries, more sick leave, free housing, and establishment of a provident fund. Nepali Congress Minister Bhadra Kali Mishra met with railway representatives and made promises, but workers were not satisfied and continued their protests throughout the 1950s, actions that Nepal’s Communist Party enthusiastically endorsed. &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251004031056_ef965e3369c8947dddd53fc69986ceff8ea0ae037474252e4ff3d2623df70fe8.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20251004031056_ef965e3369c8947dddd53fc69986ceff8ea0ae037474252e4ff3d2623df70fe8" data-rendition-name="original" width="1733" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Life and times of Nepal Government Railway"> <figcaption>Mahabir with a freight train leaving Raxaul in 1964. Photo: FRITZ LEHMAN</figcaption> </figure>  &nbsp;In his book Prachin Sansmaran, Ram Mani Dixit tells how he and a party of Nepali officials and soldiers were entrusted with 1,530 boxes of Indian currency worth nine million rupees to deliver to the Calcutta mint in 1939. A special NGR train left Amlekhganj with the treasure, but being heavily overloaded, the train rapidly gained speed, and Dixit and the party became alarmed and began crying “Narayan, Narayan” in fear. The driver lost control, the train derailed, soldiers were thrown from the wagons, and silver coins were scattered in the jungle. Dixit and his colleagues managed to escape through the coach windows with only bumps and bruises. The NGR repeatedly faced several problems in operating its trains. Its engines could run on wood, but coal was the preferred fuel, and coal supplies from India sometimes were interrupted.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025100404104_1b5c40eb721f6d1c019764a7208ef93883374261f3823bf82606ca0599a12546.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="2025100404104_1b5c40eb721f6d1c019764a7208ef93883374261f3823bf82606ca0599a12546" data-rendition-name="original" width="1548" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Life and times of Nepal Government Railway NT"> <figcaption>Gorarkhnath taking water at Simara. Photo: DEREL CROSS</figcaption> </figure>  By the 1940s, spare parts for its locomotives were hard to obtain from England, and its 30 lb. rails could not support heavier equipment that would allow more efficient and less costly operations. While mechanics with only on-the-job training performed heroically to keep broken-down equipment repaired and in service, regular maintenance was neglected, and the Ranas took no steps to invest the amounts needed to modernise the railway. Nor did matters improve with the advent of democracy in 1951. Nepal’s First Five-Year Plan (1956-1961) for the transportation sector focused its attention and provided funds for building roads and airports. In Nepal’s transportation family, railways were the sano bhai, even the sautini bhai. However, the NGR was not forgotten, and several studies were conducted from 1952 to 1971 to consider what should and could be done with the NGR. A report by Indian railway officials in 1952 described the alternatives: rehabilitate the NGR at minimal cost; rehabilitate it as a permanent measure; convert the line to a metre-gauge railway, extend the existing narrow-gauge line from Amlekhganj to Hetauda after rehabilitating the entire system; or construct a new metre-gauge line to Hetauda.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025100404100_16b15ff70330db854836323a6827b53ceec5cbc14691748f7cdf61b9dd767e22.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="2025100404100_16b15ff70330db854836323a6827b53ceec5cbc14691748f7cdf61b9dd767e22" data-rendition-name="original" width="1525" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Life and times of Nepal Government Railway NT"> <figcaption>Gorakhnath heading toward Birganj. Children around the world are fascinated by the sight and sound of steam locomotives. Photo: DAVID CROSS</figcaption> </figure>  Nepal adopted the last and most expensive alternative, but all that was accomplished was a survey of a new line to Hetauda. There were no efforts to implement the ambitious project or to secure the necessary funding. As the NGR rapidly deteriorated after 1956, newspaper stories and editorials rallied to support the railway and criticised government inaction. A 1959 article claimed that 'ill-feeling and disunity are prevalent among railway employees, and this has resulted in inefficient service causing anxiety and inconveniences for passengers. Local people who know the inside stories of the Railway are afraid to make a journey even up to one station.' In 1964, another paper wrote: 'The Nepal Government Railway is no more than a heap of scrap iron. The number of passengers is negligible. The Government has become completely indifferent towards the condition of the railway.'  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251004031056_c27b470a52bf8f66d7d56fef8bcbf1e3d74d997c5fd66d7e9e3085f322e7de92.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20251004031056_c27b470a52bf8f66d7d56fef8bcbf1e3d74d997c5fd66d7e9e3085f322e7de92" data-rendition-name="original" width="1519" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Life and times of Nepal Government Railway NT"> <figcaption>Shri Bishnu under repair at Birganj. Photo: JOHN BENSON</figcaption> </figure>  Another article charged: 'The NGR has reached a stage of total ruination… Employees never receive their salaries in time… The train starts with ticketless passengers. No government authority ever inspects this wretched transport [system]... It is painful to note that we cannot improve the condition of such a small railway. We appeal to the Government…to improve the condition of this railway.' A 1965 World Bank study of Nepal’s transportation needs provided the coup de grace. It recommended the NGR be abandoned, as the cost of rehabilitation was excessive and did not solve the problem of incompatible track gauges at Raxaul, which necessitated transferring by hand freight from India Railway’s metre-gauge wagons to NGR’s narrow-gauge wagons. Nevertheless, Indian technicians completed surveys and submitted reports to Nepal in 1967 for rehabilitating the NGR, but by then the situation was hopeless: the railway was losing 300,000 rupees a year. Yet a few government officials continued to advocate for broad gauging the then-defunct NGR and extending it to Hetauda.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025100404100_9c70a2962fba05a9dbf239efd539adb42663070594bcc014bf84c9f2d1a05329.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="2025100404100_9c70a2962fba05a9dbf239efd539adb42663070594bcc014bf84c9f2d1a05329" data-rendition-name="original" width="1504" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Life and times of Nepal Government Railway NT"> <figcaption>The former NGR station at Amlekhganj in 2017. Photo: DAN EDWARDS</figcaption> </figure>  Again, Indian engineers conducted a survey for such a 52-mile broad-gauge, electric line in 1971 and submitted a reportto the government. They estimated the project would cost at least $200 million plus $60 million more for rolling stock. India’s Railway Ministry promptly concluded it was not a viable project, and the report died in Nepal’s byzantine bureaucracy. It seems some dreams never die, and hope springs eternal. In April 2018, the prime ministers of India and Nepal met in New Delhi and agreed to build an electric rail line from Raxaul to Kathmandu and that India would conduct the studies and pay the full costs of construction. That was seven years ago. No rails have yet been laid. Costs continue to escalate, and no guaranteed funding has been secured. Will we ever see electric broad-gauge trains arriving in Kathmandu? Certainly not in this author’s lifetime, but then he is no longer a young man. &nbsp;&nbsp; Read aoslo: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/nepal-s-five-little-railways">Nepal’s five little railways</a>, Dan Edwards Dan Edwards was a Peace Corps volunteer in 1966 and is the author of several books on Nepal. This is the second instalment in a new limited series in Nepali Times on the historic transportation infrastructures of Nepal.

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Life and times of Nepal Government Railway

At the stroke of the midnight hour, it finally came to something everyone in Nepal’s oldest and biggest party had been dreading — a split.
Not that this was anything new. The Nepali Congress (NC) had splintered twice before and the main protagonist both times was five-time prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba. After the GenZ uprising and being physically mauled and his house looted and set on fire on 9 September Deuba had said he was stepping aside, but it seems old ambitions die hard.
The showdown between the Gagan Thapa-Bishow Prakash Sharma camp and Deuba came to a head on Wednesday as the establishment leadership decided to suspend Thapa, Sharma, and Farmullah Mansoor for five years to punish them for daring to challenge the leadership and hold a special general convention.&nbsp;
Bhrikuti Mandap in the centre of Kathmandu is the venue for trade exhibitions, but this week it was where an exhibition of everything that is wrong with Nepali politics was on full display — lack of internal party democracy and an unaccountable gerontocracy clinging on to power.&nbsp;
Thapa and Sharma had gathered the support of 62% of the NC membership at their convention and chose Gagan Thapa as the new party leader and proposed him as a prime ministerial candidate after the 5 March election.
Deuba’s allies had refused to attend or endorse the special general convention, and were adamant about holding a general convention to choose a new party head after the election. Thapa, Sharma and their supporters argued that the party faced ignominious defeat in the polls if Deuba insisted on being prime minister again.
The events of September 2025 have cast a long shadow over Nepali politics, with many new parties and alliances pledging to represent the aspirations of the GenZ movement. However, that realisation does not seem to have dawned on the tried, tested and failed leadership of the NC, UML and the NCP where the party leaders have held on to power by sidelining all rivals. &nbsp;
Thapa and Sharma were NC general secretaries held multiple rounds of discussions to convince Deuba to accept their eight-point demand that for the party’s and the country’s sake his time was up, and he should cut and cut cleanly. Despite having already handed over the party leadership to Purna Bahadur Khadka in September, Deuba refused to step down.&nbsp;
‘What demands has the Nepali Congress been unable to reconcile that it is headed for a split? There is no ideological dispute, just a proposal to make it easier to go for the election,’ noted journalist and author Narayan Wagle. ‘If those who have been in politics for so many years cannot reach an agreement, what have they learned in life and what hope is there for the country?’
Gagan Thapa was elected unopposed as the new party president on Thursday midnight, with Sharma and Pushpa Bhusal appointed vice-presidents. Thapa has said backroom talks are still ongoing though mediators, but for all intents and purposes the split seems irreconcilable.&nbsp;
The million dollar question now is: who gets to be the real Nepali Congress? Who gets the NC’s tree election symbol at the polls?
Both the Thapa and Deuba factions have written to the Election Commission (EC) laying claim to the party and its symbol. Whatever the EC decides, with less than two months to go for the polls, the dispute over its legitimacy will almost certainly have to be decided in the courts.
Deuba and his counterpart K P Oli in the UML have been unwilling or unable to fathom the level of outrage that young Nepalis feel about their parties. They have shown an inability to heed the call for institutional overhaul within parties and in Nepal’s political culture post-September. Second generation leaders within those parties who have grown old waiting for reform, seem to have better internalised the need for internal restructuring.&nbsp;
Oli has managed to hold on to power after displaying increasing authoritarianism within his UML, while Deuba has shown an unwillingness to bow out of leadership with grace. Both have squandered away their legacy.
For Gagan Thapa, the events of Thursday was a culmination of his long-standing claim for leadership change within the NC coupled with a compulsion to address the demands of the youth movement to maximise gains for his party this election. Just like Deuba, Thapa’s house was also looted and torched during the September protests.
Thapa told Onlinekhabar on Thursday: “Our belief was that we cannot go into elections under the present circumstances under [Sher Bahadur Deuba’s] leadership and with him as the party’s prime ministerial candidate. We would lose.”
The special general convention has taken further steps for reform, endorsing amendments to the party statue, which has set term limits for key leadership positions, including a one-term limit for party president, two-term limit for prime minister, three for a ministerial position, and four terms for a directly elected member of Parliament. Meanwhile, party members are only allowed to become lawmakers through the Proportional Representation system for one term.&nbsp;
If Thapa’s leadership holds legitimacy, this new chapter for the NC might come as a welcome change to young Nepalis who have been calling for leadership overhaul and internal party reforms within the establishment parties. But it may also come at the cost of the NC’s core base. It remains to be seen which side tips the scale at the polls.&nbsp;
The NC’s infighting and institutional shake-up has also posed fresh concerns about how it will affect the election schedule just as it looked as though all the mainstream political parties were finally on board and preparing for the polls. With voting barely weeks away, Nepal’s political parties are still too busy cleaning up their own house to give too much time to work on their platforms, agendas and serious campaigning
Historically, political break-ups and make-ups in Nepal are not set in stone. Even the newest alliance between Rabi Lamichhane’s RSP and Kulman Ghising’s UNP did not even last 12 days. &nbsp;Balen Shah is set to resign from his mayor position in the next and has gotten into the thick of election preparation with the RSP. His next step will be to choose which constituency he is going to contest from.
Meanwhile, in the light of a new day, the two NC factions may still decide that breaking up is hard to do when they are so close to elections, and the political stakes are so high.&nbsp;

Grand split in Nepal’s grand old party

Only a handful of people who witnessed the 1934 megaquake as children are still alive. And the memories of 2015 are fading fast.&nbsp;
We were shaken, but have not stirred into action. We have not even started preparing to be prepared for the inevitable, for it is not a question of ‘if’ but ‘when’.&nbsp;
Thursday 15 January was National Earthquake Safety Day commemorating the 1934 disaster that killed 10,000 people in Kathmandu Valley at a time when its population was barely 100,000.
Nepal is in an active seismic zone, and a really big one is overdue in the seismic gap in western Nepal where there has not been a megaquake for 500 years. The 7.8M quake in 2015 did not completely release the tectonic stress below Central Nepal.
An 8M+ earthquake epicentred in western Nepal will be even more violent than the 2015 one in Kathmandu and will be powerful enough to cause destruction across northern India as well.&nbsp;
We Nepalis are resilient, but we are also complacent and fatalistic. How else does one explain the unsafe and unplanned building construction in Kathmandu, Pokhara and other towns despite frequent reminders of what quakes can do?&nbsp;
Most designs are ad hoc and follow no engineering logic. Reinforced Cement Concrete (RCC) is now widespread across the country since such structures mostly withstood the 2015 event. But structural engineers say most concrete buildings are substandard, and can be death traps. Also, the country lacks equipment and training for search and rescue in cement houses.&nbsp;
FIRE HAZARD
If an earthquake struck Kathmandu on a windy winter evening, there is the added risk of fires from gas cylinders in collapsed buildings spreading across the densely packed city core. Fire trucks will not be able to reach those areas because the streets will be blocked.
Seismic risk is now amplified by climate breakdown. Nepal now needs to factor in the co-hazard of massive avalanches and Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs) triggered by future earthquakes. There are 41 potentially dangerous glacial lakes in the region, and 27 of them are in Tibet feeding rivers that flow into Nepal. A megaquake there could cause multiple simultaneous GLOFs.&nbsp;
If the 2015 earthquake had not happened on a Saturday, tens of thousands of children could have been killed in the 7,000 schools that were flattened. More than 2,500 government buildings came down, and would have killed and trapped many if it had not been a weekend.
Schools and health facilities retrofitted before the disaster were unscathed, and served as shelters for survivors. Chhatrapati Free Clinic (CFC) was reinforced three years before the earthquake for Rs5.2 million, and with support from National Society of Earthquake Technology (NSET), 800 community members were trained in search and rescue.
Bhuwaneswori Secondary School in Bhaktapur and Bal Bikas Secondary School in Kathmandu both survived 2015 because they had been retrofitted. Singha Darbar, the Supreme Court and the Department of Roads buildings were also made seismic resistant after 2015 quake, but the arson attacks on 9 September gutted them.
While many private residential homes built after 2015 continue to flout building codes, municipalities are now stricter. New schools and colleges, hospitals and high rises now have to meet stringent requirements for seismic resistance.
Nepal is a hotspot for many types of disasters — earthquakes, floods, droughts, glacial outbursts, wildfires. These are not ‘natural’ disasters, they are human induced. Earthquakes do not kill people, poorly-built buildings do. Climate breakdown is anthropogenic.&nbsp;
Waiting for a disaster to strike means we have waited too long. Search and rescue readiness are well and good, but much more important is preparedness — seismic resistance structures especially of public buildings, strict zoning to establish open spaces, pre-positioning supplies and simulated drills.
We do not know how much time we have before the next one. But it is not too late to start preparing. &nbsp;
Sonia Awale

Shaken, but not stirred

The series <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/looking-good-by-doing-good">Nepal Made</a> profiles world-class Nepali products and the people behind them. Deepak Acharya was born and raised in Simara, before his uncle took him to Pokhara when he was only in sixth grade. After class, he helped sell jackets and outdoor gear at his uncle's Lakeside store. &nbsp; Twenty-two years later, &nbsp;Acharya is still selling jackets. Not international brands like he used to, but products of his own outdoor gear company, DOLPO.&nbsp; Acharya and his brother-in-law, Krishna Ammai, started making and selling jackets and gear for international companies out of Thamel. After losing his business partner in the 2015 earthquake, he was done selling imported items. He launched his own line of outerwear, named after Nepal’s rugged and remote district, known for its stunning arid landscape. The careful selection of the name DOLPO paid off. It took off, providing a high-quality, affordable Nepal-made alternative to foreign companies.&nbsp; “A lot of work went into choosing the name Dolpo,” says Acharya, who considered what came into people’s minds when they heard the name of a place with double-O sound. “I wanted a brand that local customers would instantly relate to toughness and mountains.” The elegant logo reflects this as well, made up of two overlapping rounded triangles denoting mountains with a third peak in the middle. Underneath is ‘DOLPO’ in upper case sans serif.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260116120148_968d9354094049265372d851d0e44e16ae4fc86b5631481e365e6e977f13d37d.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20260116120148_968d9354094049265372d851d0e44e16ae4fc86b5631481e365e6e977f13d37d" data-rendition-name="original" width="854" height="1280" loading="lazy" alt="Dolpo NT"> <figcaption>Photo: DOLPO</figcaption> </figure>  RIGHT QUALITY, RIGHT PRICE “Our philosophy is Right quality, Right price,” says co-founder Deepak Acharya, adding with a smile that the pricing strategy of a particular competitor has made business easy: “The employees at North Face may sell North Face, but they wear Dolpo.” The rebranding was so successful that Acharya regrets not launching it sooner. The reason for the success is that the outdoor gear market in Nepal has taken off with more and more domestic tourists trekking in the high mountains to share their adventures on social media.&nbsp; Nepalis seem to be consciously choosing sustainable, Nepal made products of international quality. Acharya says: “Of course, there will always be a demographic that only wears North Face, or Sonam. But we have the right design, right price philosophy.”&nbsp; DOLPO uses fabric and material mainly from Japan, and adheres to strict quality control. The reversible down jackets, windcheaters, shorts, fleece-lined pants, trekking trousers, backpacks, and polo shirts can be bought through its website, or two exclusive flagship stores in Sorakhutte and Thamel Chok. “After the rebrand, we slowly made a digital platform, marketed online, and worked with a delivery company to get items directly to buyers,” says Acharya. “We have no brokers or middlemen to keep prices low for the consumer.” DOLPO is a family business with Acharya’s mother and sister also involved, and nephew Nishant Ammai driving digital sales. Acharya points out that there is a lot of business opportunity in Nepal, as there are too many low-quality products being sold at too high a price. &nbsp;“The market is begging for an auto-correction,” he says. For Nepal’s pessimistic youth who are fleeing the country, Acharya urges patience: “The younger generation wants shortcuts. The mindset is to set up a venture and in three years they will be set for life. But this is not how success works.” “Choose a field, put in ten years of effort, really learn about it, and then you will see the vast possibility present in Nepal,” he continues.&nbsp; Last month, the DOLPO logo was seen on the jerseys of the Biratnagar Kings in NPL 2. The company made hats, jackets, and jerseys for star-studded cricket players including Lokesh Bam, Sandeep Lamichhane, Faf Du Plessis, and Martin Guptill. The Kings finished second in the group, and although Acharya is a football fan, he is happy to contribute to the rise of cricket in Nepal. &nbsp;&nbsp;

Proud to wear DOLPO

Illegal wildlife trade is the fourth most lucrative trafficking crime after drugs, humans, and weapons. Most wildlife ends up in China and Southeast Asia to be used mainly in traditional medicine or as bushmeat. Nepal is both the source and transit for wildlife trafficking, and while the authorities have been successful in protecting flagship mammals like tigers, rhinos, and leopards, the country still serves as a major transit point for less popular wildlife. Despite strict laws against wildlife crimes members of indigenous communities are easily tempted by organised transboundary criminals. They are recruited to poach endangered animals and plants, and end up in jail, while ring leaders are rarely caught.&nbsp; Many are not hardened criminals, just regular folk like Bishnu Adhikari, 30, who served time in Kathmandu’s Central Jail. He had gone with a friend to sell pangolin scales without knowing it was illegal and that the punishment was so harsh. Bikash Chhetri, a Grade 11 student, was riding a motorcycle with college friends when they were intercepted by the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB). Chhetri says he had no idea his &nbsp;friend was carrying the contraband in his bag. Both Adhikari and Chettri served five years in jail. But most people from Nepal’s indigenous communities are often unaware of the protected status or importance of the wildlife they were recruited to smuggle, handle, or transport. “Most of indigenous people involved in wildlife trade in Nepal are not criminals, they are poor and live near protected areas are simply trying to support their families, and mostly it is opportunistic killing,” says wildlife researcher Kumar Paudel of Greenhood Nepal. “Often they are exploited by higher-ups in the ladder of organised crime.” Paudel filed a petition at the Supreme Court in 2018, and the Supreme Court five years later ordered the government to implement the law in a full, fair, and consistent manner. One of the indigenous communities is the semi-nomadic Chepang who have a long tradition of eating fruit bats. Dibesh Karmacharya of the Center of Molecular Dynamics Nepal in Kathmandu has been looking into new diseases for over a decade and a half, and this community in Makwanpur next to Chitwan National Park was selected. “Bats are known to carry viruses and bacteria, which are not harmful to them, but when humans get exposed the microbes can mutate and become pathogens with high transmissibility,” explains Karmacharya, who found that many Chepang had been imprisoned for poaching.&nbsp; “Indigenous communities are often disenfranchised and at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, and need some kind of income,” says Karmacharya. “They are hunter-gatherers and have knowledge of the land as well as wildlife, so they get recruited by wildlife traffickers often getting caught, and not those who hire them.” CLIMATE FACTOR Global warming has meant that vectors that carry pathogens, as well as animals, are also moving to higher altitudes. As temperature rises, glaciers melt, and previously barren slopes have vegetation. Many mammals, such as common leopards, which are found in the foothills are moving up the mountains to share the habitat of snow leopards. Tigers have also been known to move out of Tarai national parks to seek cooler climes in the Mahabharata Range. Besides the risk of being caught, indigenous communities also are exposed to disease when they handle wildlife and harvest organs. In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, there was speculation that the virus had jumped from pangolins to humans, which has since been disproven. Even so, pangolins are the world’s most trafficked mammal. The scales of the anteater are thought to have medical properties and are used in traditional Chinese medicine in China, as well as eaten as a delicacy in parts of Asia. Tulshi Laxmi Suwal of the Small Mammals Conservation and Research Foundation (SMCRF), who did her PhD on pangolins from Taiwan, says there is a link between climate, increased human-wildlife contact, and emerging diseases. “Climate change is directly affecting their food and habitat,” explains Suwal. “Pangolins need a lot of water and if they don’t get it ectoparasites under their scales might be easily released to their surroundings. But water is becoming scarcer with climate breakdown.”&nbsp; Researcher Kumar Paudel says law enforcement must be driven not so much by the total number of traffickers arrested, but by the goal of discouraging people from participating in the trade. This means fair and accountable implementation of the law so that indigenous people are not disproportionately impacted.&nbsp; Some ring leaders involved in tiger and rhino poaching have been arrested, but a handful of them staged jailbreaks during the September GenZ protests and are again at large — raising the risk that poaching may increase.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260114100128_e7a6891c2980aa132dd3e4644b752008bd367dd6e868790d4dbae5aa626a2764.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20260114100128_e7a6891c2980aa132dd3e4644b752008bd367dd6e868790d4dbae5aa626a2764" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="rhino"> <figcaption>Two greater one-horned rhinoceroses at Chitwan National Park in Nepal. Photo: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS</figcaption> </figure>  “Investigation must move to the upper echelons of the trade,” says Paudel. “And indigenous people need alternative livelihoods and education so they are not easily recruited to hunt down wildlife.”&nbsp; The solution may lie in small, local incentives that can help communities realise the importance of conservation while also empowering them, socially and economically. One such example is the Pangolin Trail in Bagh Bhairav Community Forest in Kirtipur near Kathmandu. After their study found the community forest to be a habitat for pangolins and endangered bird species, SMCRF built a trekking trail which has since been handed over to the local community which can get income from visitor fees. The local government has expanded the trail, added an information center, and runs clean-up campaigns. This gave the local Tamang community of 100 households a sense of ownership and agency. Local villagers have been trained to become citizen scientists, and help in recording pangolin behaviour. One of them is Sun Laxmi Pakhrin, who is not formally educated, but works in pangolin protection using GPS tracking systems and camera traps.&nbsp; A community previously notorious for theft, drug trafficking and wildlife poaching is now reformed. Families are also involved in small businesses such as poultry. Suwal says: “Women in indigenous communities are now in decision-making roles and the guardians of nature and wildlife.” With contribution from Qian Sun, Global Voices.

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Proud to wear DOLPO

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