(TibetanReview.net, Jun11’24) —After China reopened 14 border trade points between its occupied Tibet and Nepal on May 25 after a prolonged Covid-19 closure, those on the Indian side of the border in Pithoragarh district of Uttarakhand state are feeling left out and have asked New Delhi to take up the issue with Beijing.
Indian traders in the area had been travelling to Tibet through the Lipulekh pass since 1992. The trade route was closed rather suddenly after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2019, forcing Indian traders to return from the Taklakot mart in Tibet, leaving behind their woollen merchandise, reported economictimes.com Jun 10.
Five years have passed but the route has not been opened, the report cited an organisation of Indian border traders in the district’s Dharchula town as saying.
The report said the traders who belong to the Bhotia tribe started to raise their demand for reopening of the trade route through Lipulekh after China recently opened all 14 trade passes with Nepal.
“We have so far sent 22 applications to the government of India requesting it to take up with the Chinese authorities the reopening of the trade route through Lipulekh pass but have received no response so far,” Jeewan Singh Rongkali, president of Bharat Tibetan Simant Vyapar Samiti, Dharchula, has said.
He has said Indian tribal traders from Dharchula alone had left trading items worth Rs 15 lakh in Taklakot Mart in Tibet at the time of the closure of border trade in 2019.
He has said over 450 Indian traders used to supply essential goods to residents of over 45 villages of western Tibet through this trade route since 1992.
“Out of over 1.5 crore trade annually, we have paid lakhs of rupees towards customs duty and other taxes to the government of India,” Rongkali has said.
He has expressed fears that the mart made for Indian traders in Gakkhu town of Taklakot could be handed over to Nepalese traders, given the fact that China has not given permission to open passes along the India-China border.