Carrier of Development

A scion of a business house that migrated into Nepal during Rana Period from Balia of UP (India) as one of the 32 Kothi Mahajans (traders authorised to run some important businesses such as imports of silver for minting coins and palace supplies), Rauniar stepped into his father’s business in 1975 when the family had been in transport sector for about 15 years. "Soon I realised that this sector has a long-term prospect but with many aspects requiring development", recalls Rauniar, who today claims to be the number one project cargo freight-forwarder of Nepal, though he is also involved in commercial cargo transport.

As Nepal went on with development projects, so did the business of Rauniar, despite the government’s several attempts to destroy the family’s business due to his father’s involvement in politics. A project that was to operate weighing bridges so as to control overloading of vehicles was nationalised after it had operated just for 45 days. Another business to meet the same fate was the duty-free shop that National Trading Ltd, a state-enterprise, is operating now. Still Rauniar’s business in transport sector continued. Since the business was closely related with the condition of roads and modality of transport and custom rules of Nepal, India and other countries, Rauniar gradually emerged as an authority in all these areas. The result: Today he finds himself not only in the country’s formal business delegations visiting abroad, but also in various task-forces commissioned by the government to resolve problems in these fields, and in teams formed for trade and transit treaty negotiations.

As Rauniar puts it, 39 to 52 % of the carriage cost will be reduced if the Nepali export-import cargo is allowed to move on railway between Calcutta and Nepali custom points.

However detailed, the knowledge and experience could not help Rauniar in many a business deals. For example, he was denied the opportunity to manage the Biratnagar and Bhairahawa ICDs. "Though mine was the highest bid, I was rejected and the tender was cancelled", he recalls. He has been pre-qualified for management of Birganj ICD, but further progress in it is stalled because of the delay in finalizing the rail service operation procedures between Nepal and India.

Rauniar’s, involvement, however, has not been limited to only road and railway transport. He has also conducted surveys for water transport along the Arun and Trishuli rivers on his own. For Arun III hydro-power project, which was later scrapped for political reasons, he spent about Rs 2 million - a portion of it on this study to reduce the cost of transporting construction material to the project site. Rauniar also informs that it was him who first convinced the then Arun III project officials that the construction work ofthe project can be continued if the construction material iscarried on helicopter to the site while the access road would be still under construction.