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The people’s newsroom

WorldSouth Asia

Nepal tells Parliament there is encroachment along India border beyond Kalapani and Susta

Answering a Nepali Congress MP, the foreign ministry said joint mapping is still under way and gave no list of places. It said Kathmandu wants to settle the issue through talks.

From the editorial desk · KathmanduPublished
An old survey map of the Kalapani area (file photo)
An old survey map of the Kalapani area (file photo)Photo: E. C. Ryal, Great Trigonometric Survey of India / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

Key points

  1. Nepal's foreign ministry admitted cross-border encroachment at places beyond the four known disputes.
  2. It gave no number or names of the sites identified by joint teams.
  3. The India-Nepal Boundary Working Group aims to finish technical work within three years of July 2025.

Nepal’s government has told Parliament that there is encroachment along its border with India at places other than the four long-disputed areas, but has not said where.

The admission came in a written reply from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Nishkal Rai, a Nepali Congress lawmaker. Rai had pointed to the old disputes over Susta, Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura, and asked how many other affected locations joint Nepal-India teams had found, and where they were.

The ministry said that apart from those four areas, where mapping “remains incomplete”, there are stretches of the boundary where “problems of cross-border occupation and encroachment on no-man’s land exist”. It did not give a number or name a single site.

It said the locations were being mapped through the Nepal-India Boundary Working Group and other mechanisms, and that Nepal “remains committed to resolving this issue through diplomatic dialogue” on the basis of historical treaties, agreements and maps. The present boundary rests largely on the Treaty of Sugauli of 1816, and the two countries share an open border.

The Boundary Working Group was set up in 2014 to handle technical work such as building and restoring boundary pillars. It first met in Kathmandu in July 2015 and has held seven meetings in all; at the latest, in New Delhi on 28-29 July 2025, the two sides agreed to finish the remaining technical work within three years, leaving out Kalapani and Susta.

The reply comes as relations with India are being debated in Kathmandu. Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle drew criticism, including from former foreign minister Kamal Thapa, after telling a summit in New Delhi on Friday that the era when Nepali nationalism was associated with anti-India sentiment “is over”. India has not commented on the ministry’s reply.