Nepal approves new map incorporating Kalapani, Limpiyadhura, Lipulekh

Yubraj Khatiwada, Minister of Finance and Information and Communication, announced that a new political map of Nepal is being issued.

"The updated map of Nepal presented by the Ministry of Land Management in today's Council of Ministers meeting has been endorsed. The new map incorporates northern, southern, western and eastern International borderlines as well as includes the political and administrative arrangements," Khatiwada, also the government spokesperson said on Monday.

"This new map will be used in all kinds of documents which has been enforced on by government," he added.

Nepal's President Bidhya Devi Bhandari, while reading out Plans and Policies of the Government for the Fiscal Year of 2020-21 last week, had announced a new map incorporating the claimed territories as that of Nepal.

"Our emblems and logos used for the government purpose will follow the newly released maps. It also would be incorporated in the textbooks and for public use as well," Khatiwada added.

The new map of Nepal would be released on Tuesday said Damodar Dhakal, Director-General of Nepal's Department of Survey.

"A new map has been endorsed by the cabinet and we will be releasing it on Tuesday. We already had prepared the map but were waiting for the cabinet's approval to make it public," Dhakal told ANI over the phone.

The new map also incorporates Limpiyadhura, Lipulekh, and Kalapani, territories claimed by Nepal.

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.

After a new road was inaugurated on May 8 by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh connecting the Lipulekh pass in Uttarakhand with 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".