The government is soon beginning a Technical Cooperation Project to make plant quarantine check posts at the main customs points of Nepal more effective, Nepal Television said Tuesday.

The project also aims at meeting the standard of World Trade Organization (WTO), the TV report said, adding, World Food Program is extending its support to the project.

Under the project, seven check posts across the country will be improved with additional technical manpower and required infrastructure for the investigation and preparation of reports.

After the completion of the project, the check posts will be capable to carry out 90 percent of checking by themselves, according to officials concerned.

As of now, the check posts only boast a microscope, they added. “Due to a lack of sophisticated technologies, officers have to check each and everything themselves.”

To check any doubtful items they have to be sent to the Directorate of Plant Protection at Khumaltar, Kathmandu. Because of it, exporters are compelled to pay extra diverge charges, according to the news report.

Chief of Plant quarantine check post at Birgunj, Jeetendra Yadav said, “After the project is accomplished, the exporters and officers will be free of unnecessary burden.”

The project will start in the current fiscal year (2060/61). After Nepal’s entry into the WTO, Nepal will now have to amend a total 14 laws related to the plant quarantine, according to experts.