Kathmandu: It has been revealed that a total of 825 BYD electric vehicles were rushed into Nepal via the Korala border crossing in Mustang just days before the national budget announcement.
According to data from the Korala Customs Office, these vehicles entered the country by May 28, a mere twenty-four hours before the government formally presented the budget for the fiscal year 2026/27. The timing of this massive influx has raised serious red flags regarding market manipulation and the potential exploitation of insider information.
Amindra Singh, the Information Officer at the Korala Customs Office, confirmed that the volume of imports was extraordinarily high compared to previous months. A total of 449 vehicles entered on May 26 and 27, followed by a frantic final push on May 28, where 176 BYD cars crossed the border in four separate batches throughout the day. This sudden surge suggests a coordinated effort by importers to clear as much inventory as possible before the new fiscal policy took effect.
The situation escalated quickly as security forces intervened. Out of the total vehicles that entered and were being cleared, the Armed Police Force (APF) has seized 774 vehicles at various strategic locations, including Jomsom in Mustang, Kushma in Parbat, and Hemja in Kaski. APF Spokesperson DIG Bishnu Prasad Bhatta stated that the vehicles were taken into custody during transit toward Kathmandu and other districts following reports of suspicious activities and potential irregularities in the customs clearance process.
The primary suspicion underlying this crackdown is that sensitive information regarding a hike in tax rates for electric vehicles was leaked from the budget statement prior to its official reading. Importers allegedly used this leaked information to clear hundreds of vehicles under the more favourable existing tax regime, a move that is estimated to have cost the state treasury billions in lost revenue. There are even more serious allegations that some vehicles were cleared through customs via administrative collusion while the cars were still in transit and had not yet physically arrived at the customs yard.
This incident follows a similar scandal at the Rasuwa customs point, where officials were accused of clearing approximately 200 vehicles that had not yet reached the yard, leading to the recall of Rasuwa Customs Chief Tulsi Prasad Bhattarai and five other employees.
While Information Officer Singh at Korala has denied any wrongdoing, asserting that all clearances were done procedurally and in coordination with the department, the scale of the police intervention tells a different story. He attributed the backlog of 218 vehicles still in the customs yard to a shortage of drivers and the time required to charge the vehicle batteries before they could be driven to their final destinations.
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