Nepal to release new political map showing India’s encroachment

 Kathmandu has almost completed the revised political map of its land, including the territories encroached upon by New Delhi, which it intends to use against India to muscle diplomatic pressure

New Delhi: In a move set to again stir up the border issue with India, Nepal will be soon unveiling a detailed and revised political map of the country.

The announcement of the release of the new political map by Kathmandu was made last week by Nepalese Minister for Land Management Padma Kumari Aryal. The formal announcement by the Nepalese government, confirmed the report first published almost a month back by the News21, of Kathmandu working on war-footing to mark its borders with both India and China. 

According to the latest report, Nepal has almost completed the revised political map of its land, including the territories encroached upon by India. The map will be used to build diplomatic pressure on India, compelling New Delhi to take the issue seriously. 

In a telephonic conversation with News21, the office of Minister Aryal said that the department will be soon unveiling the revised political map that incorporates all the territories that belong to Nepal. 

“The work had started in January mid-week. A team comprising of officers from the Department of Survey, Home Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Federal Affairs, General Administration and the Nepal-India Joint Technical Level Border Committee carried oversaw the entire task. The map is almost ready,” a senior government official said.

He added that the new map will be first handed to the parliamentary committee for review, which would then be placed in the House for approval. 

The border issue surfaced, when New Delhi published its political map in the first week of November 2019, wherein it showed Kalapani and some other territories belonging to Nepal on the Indian side of the border. Immediately, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli registered his protest against the move through a diplomatic note dated 22 November 2019. 

In diplomatic communiqué, Kathmandu had also proposed a date for a meeting between the two nations to resolve the border difference. However, the meeting could not take place as India’s Ministry of External Affairs response to the note came on 19 December 2019, by when the proposed date was already past. 

Following the delay, Nepal reportedly sent a second diplomatic note, which according to Kathmandu’s foreign affairs office, is yet to be responded by the Indian authorities. 

The latest move by the PM Oli-led government comes in the wake of heavy criticism from various quarters that the map of Nepal illustrated in official websites and various documents showed Indian marking of the international border. 

Sources claimed that Minister Aryal’s department has used the latest GIS tagging and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) methods to minutely mark every inch of the Nepalese land pocketed alongside its Himalayan neighbors – India and China.