सिंहदरबार संवाददाता
Kathmandu. About 30 kilometers east of Devkota Chowk on the north-south road of Bhairahawa, comes the Ramgram Municipality of Parasi. The area around Bhairahawa, that is, flat and fertile land, rapidly expanding human settlement, and rapidly building industrial infrastructure. And in the same flat granary paddy, wheat and corn fields, a structure stands on 10 bighas of land. And inside that structure, cars are now being produced.
Hyundai cars are currently being assembled at the assembly plant of Korean motor manufacturer Hyundai. Hyundai Venue cars are being manufactured by assembling more than 1,100 parts inside a large roadside structure located in Ramgram Municipality-13, Parasi. And this is also the first assembly industry for the production of four-wheeled vehicles in Nepal.
Of the 1,100 parts used in assembly, the company imports some from India and some directly from Korea. Laxmi Motor Corporation of Laxmi Group has spent Rs 2.5 billion to build a structure where cars are now grown in fields that used to grow rice until a year ago. “Until 2023, there was a paddy field here. After 11 months of hard work, a world-class assembly plant that grows cars in a paddy field has been completed and is now operational,” said Ishwar Kumar Saraf, the company’s project manager.
The assembly industry, inaugurated by Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda on Baisakh 28, 2081 BS, has a capacity to produce 5,000 cars per year. The company claims that the highest standards of performance, safety and reliability will be ensured in every vehicle produced at the plant built by LMC i.e. Lakshmi Motor Corporation under the technical supervision of Hyundai Motor Corporation (HMC).
The assembly plant has been started by fulfilling all the quality and technical standards prepared by Hyundai Motor Corporation. After the technicians from Korea prepared the entire inspection report, the relevant bodies of the Nepal government also inspected the plant and gave permission for production.
200 skilled engineers and technicians are continuously deployed here to assemble the entire car by connecting the small parts imported separately. Some technicians have come from Korea for car assembly, while some have also come from India. But most of the technicians are from Nepal. The company has been saying that it has set up an assembly plant, seeing the potential for exports.
Lakshmi Group, the family company of Ganesh Bahadur Shrestha, who started his business journey from Pokhara, has established an assembly plant through its sister organization Lakshmi Motor Corporation. And it is being led by the group’s executive director, Nirakar Shrestha.
The company has said that the price of the Venue car assembled in Nepal can be 7 to 10 percent cheaper than the imported one. However, since the cost calculation work is currently ongoing, the company’s executive director, Nirakar Shrestha, says that it is not possible to say exactly about the price. After the successful assembly of the Venue, the company plans to assemble the i10 and Creta at the same plant.
Sarraf, the plant’s production manager, says that this assembly plant of Hyundai is the best in South Asia. Two other two-wheeler assembly plants are also located near Hyundai’s assembly plant. This Hyundai assembly plant is located between Shekhar Golchha’s Bajaj Motor Assembly Plant and Bishnu Agarwal’s Yamaha Motorcycle Assembly Plant.
Recently, there has been a wave of rapid industrialization in Bhairahawa and its surrounding areas. With the addition of land shortage and security challenges in the Pathlaiya-Birgunj industrial corridor, a new era of industrialization has begun in the areas around Bhairahawa. Apart from that, the wide Bhairahawa-Butwal road and the rapidly expanding Butwal-Narayangadh road have also opened new doors of possibilities in this area.
The company is looking at the possibility of exporting Hyundai vehicles manufactured in Nepal, stating that the assembly industry is the first starting point of industrialization. There is a possibility that the motors manufactured in Nepal can be exported to northern India and Bangladesh. The business community is demanding that the government’s stable policy of encouraging assembly industries continue.
Bajaj Motorcycles, Yamaha, TVS and Royal Enfield motorcycles are already being assembled in Nepal. Despite the growing attraction of consumers towards electric vehicles, it is not uncommon for Lakshmi Group to take the risk of opening an assembly industry by spending more than 2.5 billion rupees.
However, two-wheelers are facing criticism for not having much impact on employment and consumer prices despite tax concessions. The Office of the Auditor General has already questioned the tax concessions given during the assembly of two-wheelers.
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