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| the nepali embessy at barakhamba road in the indian capaital |
- The residence of the Nepali ambassador at Barakhamba Road in New Delhi is an old house within the premises of the Nepali Embassy, devoid of basic facilities. To make the matters worse, the embassy lies just above a noisy underground track of the Delhi Metro.
The plight of the building had failed to catch the attention of the embassy employees until the recent nomination of Nepali Congress leader Deep Kumar Upadhyay as Nepal’s ambassador to India, a post lying vacant since 2011.
“The place is uninhabitable. Water seeps from the ceiling, phone cords have been chewed upon by rats, the AC isn’t working, and furniture is out of shape,” said an employee at the embassy. He added that the place would not be ready to welcome the ambassador for at least two months.
“Preliminary estimates show the renovation and repairs will cost more than IRs 2 million. We are planning to send a report to the Foreign Ministry mentioning the amount of time and money required for maintenance.” Acting Ambassador Krishna Prasad Dhakal said consultations are ongoing with technicians regarding the repair and renovation of the ambassador’s residence. More than a dozen employees live on the embassy premises. Three consuls—economic, security and investigation—and a military attaché live in rented houses outside the embassy. The monthly rental charges exceed IRs 200,000.
A study is under way regarding a plan to build either residential houses or apartment style buildings for the staff on the embassy premises that sprawl over 48 ropanis. The biggest change since Ambassador Rukma Shumsher Rana—who was recalled on August 10, 2011— left is the construction of the metro railway that runs under and within the “annex” of the premises.
In May 2011, Nepal denied the request for permission to drill some parts of the embassy, including the land in front of the ambassador’s residence, for the expansion of the Metro tracks. The then foreign minister, Upendra Yadav, sent a taskforce led by Joint-secretary Dhananjay Jha to study the situation.
“We had made it clear that the embassy’s land could not be provided to build the tracks, but I don’t know about the underground way,” Jha, who is currently Nepal’s ambassador to the UAE, told the Post.
The track that came into operation since January last year lies 15 meters below the surface and 11 meters under the embassy premises. “We had suggested that the rails could be operated by building tracks 11 meters below the surface in a 5-metre wide tunnel,” said Khaga Nath Adhikari, currently the Nepali ambassador to Thailand.
But the rails running above the annex of the embassy are causing all the trouble. The residential staff complain of noise and “vibration that breaks light bulbs and causes cracks on the walls”.
The US Embassy and a dozen other diplomatic agencies, citing the Vienna Convention (1961), were able to prevent railway tracks below or near their premises.
Though the Cabinet has named Upadhyay as the envoy to India, he will be appointed only after a parliamentary hearing in Nepal and approval from the host country.
The last few heads of the Delhi mission—Rana and Durgesh Man Singh—were recalled before their tenures ended. Rana had got into a controversy over his stakes in Dabur Nepal Pvt Ltd, which is Dabur India’s Nepal unit. He was also charged with non-cooperation to then Indian Foreign Minister SM Krishna while he visited Nepal.
Singh retained the job only for 15 months. Former Ambassador to India Lok Raj Baral shares his experience of the “unpredictability” that envoys to India face. Baral headed the mission only for 14 months.
Since 1989, out of the seven ambassadors deputed to New Delhi, only Chakra Prasad Bastola, Bhekh Bahadur Thapa and Karna Dwoj Adhikari completed their four-year terms.
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