Nepal unveils revised map showing India's territories as its own
May 20, 2020
Kathmandu [Nepal], May 20 : Nepal on Wednesday officially unveiled a revised political and administrative map of the country showing India's territories of Limpiyadhura, Lipulekh and Kalapani as part of its own sovereign territory.
Nepal's Minister for Land Reforms and Management, Padma Aryal, unveiled the revised map during a televised press conference held at the ministry late on Wednesday afternoon.
"We have come to the point of unveiling our revised map which includes the territories which were not incorporated in earlier maps on the basis of ample evidence and proofs collected," Minister Aryal claimed in the address broadcast by state-owned Nepal Television.
The updated map including those territories was submitted to the Ministry of Land Management by the Department of Survey which claims to have taken accurate scale, projection, and coordinate system.
The department has collected a map drawn during the Treaty of Sugauli, another brought from London, receipts of payment of land revenues, and the order issued on by the then Prime Minister Chandra Shumsher.
The three territories are unresolved between India and Nepal and both claim that they are part of their territory.
India and Nepal share a 1,800km (1,118-mile) open border. Nepal has said it has "consistently maintained" that as per the Sugauli Treaty (1816), "all the territories east of Kali (Mahakali) river, including Limpiyadhura, Kalapani and Lipu Lekh, belong to Nepal."
The Lipulekh Pass is claimed by Nepal based on the 1816 Treaty of Sugauli it entered with the British colonial rulers to define its western border with India.
Kathmandu also claims the highly strategic areas of Limpiyadhura and Kalapani, although Indian troops have been deployed there since New Delhi fought a war with China in 1962.
The publication of the new map comes less than a fortnight after a new road was inaugurated on May 8 by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh connecting the Lipulekh pass in Uttarakhand with the Kailash Mansarovar route in China. Nepal has protested against it and is also considering putting up a security post in the area.
India's Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had said the road going through Uttarakhand's Pithoragarh district "lies completely within the territory of India".
