Survey of the Kathmandu Bhairahawa Corridor: October 2013
Results from the survey of the border crossing time of trucks as they cross Nepal-India border in Bhairahawa and arrive at Nagdhunga
Abstract
This report provides key results from the survey of the border crossing time of the trucks as they cross Nepal-India border in Bhairahawa and arrive at Nagdhunga (Kathmandu). The survey took place from October 8, 2013 in Belahiya (in Bhairahawa, Nepal)-Sunauli (in India) and was conducted for three working days.
We found that the presence of border (both at Indian side and Nepal side) delays the transportation time by 3 hours, 10 minutes (190 minutes). This delay estimate includes the total of times spent processing all paper works in Indian custom and Nepalese custom yard. If one assumes that the clearing time for vehicles arriving from Indian custom offices are independent of clearing time in custom yard in Nepal, then the standard deviation for the border crossing time is 1 hour, 41 minutes(i.e. 101 minutes). The average delay during our survey carried out in June was 4 hours 32 minutes (240 minutes) and corresponding standard deviation was 124.16 minutes (2 hours, 4 minutes). During our current survey period, the trucks on average took 14 hours 10 minutes (with standard deviation being 5 hours, 23 minutes). The corresponding number in June was 44 hours 4 minutes (standard deviation: 40 hours 20 minutes). The surprising difference can be attributed to less data points this time, which biased data in favour of fast arriving vehicles.
One striking fact from our study is the relationship of the total time spent by trucks inside custom yard and the time spent doing actual custom related work. If we sum the average time for initial verification, inspection, bank payment and transloading, it turns out to be about 183 minutes. The average time spent by a truck inside the custom yard is actually 166 minutes (when calculated using total time inside yard for all trucks). This should not come as a surprise as many trucks either parallelly transload the goods or do not transload at all. The corresponding numbers for June survey were 235.5 minutes and 240 minutes. When compared to Birgunj, where almost 75% of the total time inside custom yard is spent doing nothing, Bhairahawa’s custom seems to be working quite efficiently.
This report has been produced for Evidence on Demand with the assistance of the UK Department for International Development (DFID) contracted through the Climate, Environment, Infrastructure and Livelihoods Professional Evidence and Applied Knowledge Services (CEIL PEAKS) programme, jointly managed by DAI (which incorporates HTSPE Limited) and IMC Worldwide Limited.
Citation
Anon. Survey of the Kathmandu Bhairahawa Corridor: October 2013. Evidence on Demand, UK (2013) iv + 29 pp. [DOI: 10.12774/eod_cr.october2013.poudel3]
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