Pokhara-The ambulance, which was given to Pokhara by Linji Municipality of China two years ago, has been left stranded at the Rasuwa border crossing after the Pokhara Metropolitan City Office did not pay the customs duty on the ambulance. 
The ambulance, which was left in the open air for two years, is rusting and becoming a wreck. 
Linji Municipality of China has gifted Pokhara a class A ambulance worth Rs 2.5 crore. 
Kaski district does not yet have such an ambulance facility. Kaski Chief District Officer and Coordinator of the District Ambulance Management Committee, Rudra Devi Sharma, informs that Kaski does not yet have a class A ambulance facility.
If the ambulance given by China had been brought, it would have been the first class A ambulance in Kaski. A class A ambulance has Advanced Life Support (ASL) facilities. Such an ambulance should have highly trained health workers. Such an ambulance is used to take patients with serious health conditions to the hospital by providing them with basic facilities in the treatment room. The Ambulance Service Directive, 2082, stipulates that a 'A' class ambulance should have 25 types of equipment that help save lives. The ambulance with these facilities is stranded in the Rasuwa Customs Office premises after Pokhara Metropolitan City showed indifference in the customs clearance process.
The Nepal government had made arrangements for complete exemption from customs duty when importing ambulances worth up to 1.6 million rupees. Pokhara Metropolitan City also sought customs duty exemption for the ambulance that was gifted from China. However, the government did not grant customs duty exemption on it, citing legal provisions. Pokhara Metropolitan City did not want to purchase the ambulance in a way that would provide services to the people by paying customs duty. Pokhara Metropolitan City Mayor Dhanraj Acharya says, "The cost of the ambulance is 25 million rupees, and there is no allocation in the Pokhara Metropolitan City budget to purchase an ambulance worth that much. The ambulance is stranded because Pokhara Metropolitan City is unable to pay the customs duty."
Since the ambulance donated by China arrived at Rasuwa Customs, Pokhara Metropolitan City Mayor Acharya has twice passed the municipal budget from the municipal executive. However, he did not allocate funds in those budgets to release the ambulance. Instead, Mayor Acharya seized the Fortuner vehicle confiscated by the revenue investigation during this period and brought it for his own purposes. The metropolis had paid Rs 6 million to the customs department as a tip-off for that. The vehicle was completely burned in the arson attack during the Genji movement on Bhadra 24. The metropolis has not yet arranged funds to bring an ambulance that can take seriously ill patients to the hospital through customs. On the other hand,
the Pokhara Metropolitan City vehicle that was burned during the Genji movement has also been stalled due to a dispute over whose initiative the ambulance was going to come to Pokhara. Pokhara businessman Bishwa Shankar Palikhe claims that the Linji Municipality of China gifted Pokhara an ambulance on his initiative. Mayor Acharya says that the gift was given when he visited China.
Palikhe, a businessman who imports goods from China, says, “The ambulance came to Pokhara on my personal initiative. We took the initiative to the central government to bring this ambulance with customs exemption. Despite repeated requests to the then Health Minister Pradeep Poudel, the government did not grant customs exemption, saying there was no provision in the law.”
Mayor Acharya says, “Pokhara has sisterly relations with Linji Municipality. They gave me a gift when I visited China. Since we do not have a commercial vehicle, we requested customs exemption from the government.” Tulsi Prasad Bhattarai,
the chief customs officer of the Rasuwa Customs Office, says that two years ago, employees of the Pokhara Metropolitan City came to understand the process of exempting ambulances and informed them that there was a legal provision that only ambulances up to Rs. 1.6 million were exempted. “At that time, they could not provide documents revealing the price of the ambulance. They had said that they would come after getting a decision on customs exemption from the Council of Ministers, but they have not come yet,” he says.
Mayor Acharya says that Pokhara Metropolitan City has already decided to hand over the responsibility of operating the ambulance to Sisuwa Hospital under the metropolis.

Ambulance Classification
The government has amended the Finance Act for the current fiscal year and made a provision for customs exemption for all types of ambulances. The provision has been implemented since the beginning of the current fiscal year. Customs Officer Bhattarai says, “The Finance Act has been amended and customs exemption has been made for all types of ambulances. Even after this, we called the employees of Pokhara Metropolitan City and asked them to complete the process and come to get the ambulance. They have not come yet.”
According to Kaski Chief District Officer Sharma, the District Ambulance Management Committee meeting last November decided to proceed with the customs exemption process to bring the ambulance. “The committee meeting decided to proceed with the customs exemption process for the ambulance that was gifted and recommended it to the provincial ministry. From there, the ambulance will arrive after the decision is made by the federal government’s Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Finance. The process has already started,” she says.
In Pokhara Metropolitan City, the deputy mayor and chief administrative officer do not have any information about the status of the ambulance that was gifted. Deputy Mayor Manju Devi Gurung says, “The coordinator of the health division is the mayor. Since I do not have a division under my responsibility, I am not aware of the discussions and work under it. I also have no information about the condition of the ambulance.”
Chief Administrative Officer Muktiram Aryal says that he was transferred only two months ago and therefore did not know about the gift ambulance. He says, “It has been only two months since I was transferred. I have not received any information about the gift ambulance. Now I understand about it.”