The ‘Transport King’ of Nepal who promised the PM’s chair to Prachanda

The current Prime Minister of Nepal's remarks have drawn attention to the life of Sardar Pritam Singh, the “Transport King of Nepal” who established the Nepal Public Motor Service

With his remarks on the India businessman who tried to install him as the Prime Minister of Nepal, Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’, the current Prime Minister of Nepal has drawn attention to the life of Sardar Pritam Singh, the “Transport King of Nepal”. The story recollected by Prachanda in a book launch event on July 3 dates back to 2014 when his eldest daughter Gyanu was slipping away because of cancer. Prachanda stayed with Mr Singh at his house in Delhi when the latter reportedly volunteered to make him the PM of Nepal once again. Prachanda was Prime Minister in 2008-’09 and had to resign because of a political crisis. The attempt did not succeed then but Prachanda did become Prime Minister once again in 2016 and again in December 2022.

The story provoked criticism about the interference of the “Indian lobby” in Nepal. However, the episode also highlighted the remarkable life that Pritam Singh has lived till now.

The story of Pritam Singh took off in  January 1959, when as a 24-year old Sikh man he stood on the banks of the Ganga in Patna. The young man had come from Jammu with the plan to do transport business in Nepal. He had three GMC trucks and was accompanied by three other friends. Nepal was a forbidden land for nearly a century and had opened up to the Indian business class only in 1950 with the Treaty of Peace and Friendship that allowed Indians to do business in Kathmandu.

There were no bridges over the Ganga at Patna and the steamers that transported trucks could accommodate his trucks only 15 days later as they were booked for passengers for the next fortnight. The steamer owners demanded him to dismantle his trucks as they were not capable of transporting trucks. He came up with the idea of tying multiple small boats to form single large platforms that could be guided by oarsmen to the other bank. After some vigorous discussion with dozens of oarsmen on the banks of the Ganga, the men agreed to tie several small boats and covered them with wooden planks that served as an innovative mode of transport for taking the trucks to the other side. The trucks had crossed the biggest river but north Bihar before Raxaul had many other smaller rivers that made movement for these trucks impossible. That left the option of transporting via train but Pritam was not sure if the trains would take his trucks on board. So Pritam Singh and his friends drove the trucks back to Muzaffarpur where they found a welder to produce flanged wheels for the trucks.

“This plan had to be implemented with much discretion because by law, it was a criminal act, whereby they had planned on using the rail tracks for movement of trucks.

If anyone had found their intention of using the rail tracks, Sardar Pritam Singh and his team would have spent days in jail instead of pursuing their dream of reaching Nepal to start their transportation business,” Kiran Deep Sandhu, his daughter in the book “Roads to the Valley” that was launched by Prime Minister Prachanda. Flanged wheels are used to transport heavy vehicles on rail track.

Once fitted with the flanged wheels Pritam Singh’s trucks turned into a cross between a train and a truck. After this they came to the railway line and drove in the darkness of the night on railway tracks and reached Raxaul. They were careful not to get caught by the district administrations and somehow after driving on the rail tracks for several nights reached Raxaul. Those three trucks that crossed from Raxaul were the first modern trucks that were driven on the territory of Nepal in its history.