India's rice export ban fuels a smuggling boom on the Nepal border

At the crack of dawn every day, hushed franA tic activity begins in villages located along the India-Nepal border as some residents set out on foot or in small vehicles to smuggle rice into Nepal.

Young unemployed men, women and sometimes even the elderly act as carriers for local smugglers and are paid up to 1300 for delivering a quintal of rice to warehouses set up across the border by Nepali traders.

Most of them make multiple trips to earn as much as possible.

Lakshminagar, Thoothibari, Nichlaul, Parsa Malik, Bargadwa, Bhagwanpur, Shyam Kat, Farenia, Hardi Dali and Khanuva are some of the villages from where it is very easy to cross into Nepal and smuggle rice, police sources said.

Maharajganj shares an 84-km open border with Nawalparasi and Rupandehi districts of Nepal's Lumbini province.