Infrastructure across the India-Nepal borderlands: A photo-essay

India has been investing significantly in border infrastructure in its neighbourhood, including roads, railways, and waterways, in a bid to increase connectivity and revive old linkages. Approximately Rs. 10,000 crore have been spent on infrastructure building in the last four years. However, a number of these projects continue to face significant delays in implementation. In Nepal, 73 percent of India’s total development assistance goes into building infrastructure projects.

To understand the causes of these delays, we visited Janakpur and Biratnagar in Nepal in early February 2020 to assess the progress on two India-funded projects: The Postal Highway Project and the Jogbani-Biratnagar railway line. This visual essay covers some of our fieldwork and our findings on how land acquisition and related challenges have delayed these strategic infrastructure projects.

Land acquisition has been one of the most persistent challenges in the completion of regional infrastructural projects. While the case studies were from Nepal, the findings are broadly applicable to other infrastructure projects in the region delayed due to access to land. Our recent study, When Land Comes in the Way: India’s Connectivity Infrastructure in Nepal, delves deep into the issue and suggests policy reforms for overcoming such challenges at three levels: the Indian Government, the Nepal Government and bilaterally between the two.

Biratnagar: The railway line and the Integrated Check Post

At the India-Nepal border area in Biratnagar, Indian Public Sector Enterprise IRCON is building a railway line connecting Jogbani in Bihar, India, to the industrial area of Biratnagar in Nepal. Once operational, this 13 km railway line will significantly cut transportation costs for trade between Nepal and the Indian seaports of Kolkata and Haldia.

We arrived on a sunny February morning to enquire about the causes of delay in completion of this railway line. Based on the India-Nepal 2010 agreement for development of railway infrastructure, the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for this project was signed nearly ten years ago in February 2011. We met a number of stakeholders involved in the project, from key officials in Kathmandu to local engineers and the project-affected people (PAP). They informed us that the multi-year delay in this 13 km railway project in Biratnagar was on account of land acquisition.

While a railway engine is yet to ply on this track, villagers residing nearby use this track for cross-border agricultural activities and livestock grazing. “All we ask for is a proper bridge or underpass to take our livestock to the other side (India) for grazing,” says a local villager, who considers the railway track a hindrance to his everyday activity. Most villagers we spoke to seemed unaware of the transformation and opportunities that this project could bring to the area.

The Nepal Customs Yard in Biratnagar has been built for clearance of goods arriving via rail. Construction was completed by IRCON in late 2019, after missing several deadlines due to land acquisition issues.

Local villagers use the railway track for moving across the border for agricultural activities.

Along the Jogbani-Biratnagar railway track, a villager takes cattle for grazing into India, while few others use the track as a resting spot.

Just a few meters to the West of the railway line is the Jogbani-Biratnagar Integrated Check Post (ICP). A wide, four-lane road leads us to the ICP where we see petroleum trucks entering from India. The ICP was inaugurated virtually just a few weeks prior to our visit by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Nepali Prime Minister K. P. Oli. This marks the second successfully-built ICP between India and Nepal after the one at Raxaul-Birgunj. Close to the trade gate, a security officer refers to the no-man’s land in the local parlance, “The area between the two trade gates is called Dus Gajja (10 yards).” A few petroleum trucks are crossing the checkpost. The paradox of the India-Nepal border is visible here: there are uniformed customs, police and immigration guards controlling and regulating the cross-border movement of trucks at this gate, but just a few meters away villagers and cattle freely cross the border, with just a lonely border pillar marking the imaginary line.

The trade gate of the Jogbani-Biratnagar Integrated Check Post. Petroleum is the major commodity imported by Nepal from here.

A border pillar separating Indian and Nepali territory in Biratnagar. Many villagers move freely across this border pillar for everyday activities.

Janakpur: The Hulaki Rajmarg (Postal Highway)

The Hulaki Rajmarg or Postal Highway Project accounts for the largest share of India’s total development assistance to Nepal. It runs parallel to the India-Nepal border. The project to construct 605 kms of this road began in 2006 with the preparation of a detailed project report by an Indian PSE called RITES. The construction of the highway and the Terai roads began in 2010. The total cost of this project was estimated to be approximately US$153 million.

As we travelled along one of the sectors of the Postal highway in Janakpur, a number of issues came to the fore. Land acquisition has been one of the major issues delaying the completion of this highway. This issue was further compounded by gaps in the detailed project report (DPR) that led to incorrect road alignment in a few sectors. As a result, only 10 percent of the road construction was completed by 2015.

Realising the need for a change, both the Indian and Nepali government decided to revise the MoU in 2016, moving from an India-funded-India-implemented modality to an India-funded-Nepal-implemented one. India’s National Highway Infrastructure Development Cooperation Limited (NHDCL) replaced RITES as project consultants. The 2016 MoU also mandated that 90 percent of encumbrance-free land should be available before initiation of civil works.

In Janakpur, to our surprise, the so-called “highway” was much narrower than we had imagined reading official documents: it ranges between just 7 and 15 metres in width, varying at different stretches. We are told that to avoid delays, contractors built roads on stretches where land was available and left the other rough patches of undeveloped land in-between

As of March 2020, only 7 out of 14 packages of the Postal highway and the Terai roads have been completed. The Indian and Nepali governments have formally agreed to take over the seven remaining packages.

A stretch showing complete and incomplete parts of the Postal road being built by India and Nepal.

Opening the borderlands

The India-Nepal border is often referred to as being exceptionally open and an example of the special relationship between both countries. On paper, the 1950 Indo-Nepal Treaty of Peace and Friendship, and other bilateral trade and transit arrangements regulate cross-border movements. During our fieldwork, we observed that the border is often practically invisible, more of an imaginary line cutting across villages and communities.

But do cattle, petty trade and other local movements make for a truly open border in a digital age of regional connectivity and interdependence? Can we speak of an open border in 2021 if there is no modern road, rail and other transportation infrastructure to cross it? Can we call this border open if it closes overnight, or if it takes a container truck approximately two days to clear paper-based customs?

The India-Nepal borderlands we visited are at the cusp of a momentous transformation, stuck between their medieval past and a modern future. India and Nepal are now pushing ahead and developing large-scale connectivity infrastructure, whether through integrated check posts or new rail and road links. The projects we visited reflect Indian and Nepali efforts to massively upgrade their borderlands connectivity infrastructure. Such disruption naturally faces several challenges, including from local communities and complex land acquisition processes that we survey in our paper. New Delhi and Kathmandu will have to cooperate more closely to address these irritants and bring the borderlands to the 21^st century.