KATHMANDU- The government has decided to stop distributing vehicle passes allowing people to travel from one district to another.
Issuing a circular to Chief District Officer (CDO) of all districts on Wednesday, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA) has instructed them to not issue any vehicle pass.
With the decision of the Home Ministry to halt issuing vehicle passes, the government has indicated its intention to further tighten the movement of people from one district to another.
The decision to stop issuing vehicle passes from the CDO will come into effect from Thursday, according to the circular.
So far, the CDO was authorized to issue vehicle passes allowing people with urgent needs to travel from one district to another.
Due to a government ban on long-distance public transportation as part of containment measures to combat COVID-19, those with urgent or emergency travel needs used to acquire the vehicle pass from the District Administration Office to make inter-district journeys.
However, the government decided to discontinue the vehicle pass provision in the wake of the spike of COVID-19 cases in recent days.
According to a Home Ministry source, the government move was also due to growing misuse of vehicle passes meant to facilitate the urgent travel need of people.
Kathmandu valley was observing a rise in the flow of arrivals from various parts of the country despite the government’s ban on long-route transportation services. Many private vehicle obtaining passes from the DAO were reportedly charging exorbitant fares from the people arriving Kathmandu.
Mayors of Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Lalitpur as well as other municipalities in the valley have also been putting pressure on the government to tighten people from entering Kathmandu citing the growing risk of the infection due to the travel.
