Traders of Panitanki, located on the India-Nepal border and around 35km from here, have sent letters to Union minister of state for home affairs Nisith Pramanik and Darjeeling MP Raju Bista, seeking their intervention to resolve a crisis that has cropped up in their market since mid-July.

The traders, who are entirely dependent on buyers from Nepal, are not finding customers from the neighbouring country for over three weeks because the Nepal government from mid-July has started charging duty on all commodities brought from India.

Earlier, Nepal imposed duty only on purchases of commercial quantities from India.

Following the new rule, Panitanki market’s daily turnover, which normally used to be around Rs 2.5 crore, has now drastically reduced to Rs 2 lakh.

Dipak Chakraborty, the joint secretary of Panitanki Byabsayee Samiti, said that usually, around 25,000 people from eastern districts of Nepal would visit Panitanki via the bridge over the Mechi river that marks the international border.

On the other side of the border is Kakarvitta town, which is in Jhapa district of Nepal.

But nowadays, the number of customers from Nepal is negligible, he said.

“Because of the new duty rule, customers from Nepal have stopped buying items from our market,” said Chakraborty said

Panitanki is located under Siliguri sub-division of Darjeeling district, which is a part of Bista’s constituency.

The traders have also sent a letter to S. Ponnambalam, the district magistrate of Darjeeling, mentioning the pathetic state of business at the Panitanki border market.

“Unlike other markets, trade in Panitanki had completely halted during the Covid-19 pandemic as the movement of people across the border had stopped. It had started reviving over the past few months but this new decision by the Nepal government has come as a fresh challenge for us. Nowadays, many traders are keeping their shops closed to save basic costs,” Chakraborty added.