Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ has inaugurated the newly installed Lumbini cable car service today. Prime Minister Dahal formally launched the cable car service by unveiling a copper plaque at the Bottom Station located at Golpark Bamghat of Butwal. The cable car is around three kilometres long and it is operated from Golpark Bamghat of Butwal sub-metropolitan city-3 to Basantapur of Tinau rural municipality-3 in Palpa district.

It is the first cable car in Lumbini Province. Basantapur, where one can reach from Lumbini cable car, has Kamakhyadevi temple, as well as Bhagwati temple, Ganesh temple, Kailash Parbat, and other structures like pond, stone spout, and it has now become a religious tourism destination. An agreement has already been reached among Lumbini Cable Car Company, Butwal sub-metropolis and Tinau rural municipality for daily operation of the cable car service. The IME Group constructed and brought the cable car service into operation on its investment. This is the third cable car run by IME Group.

Chairperson of Lumbini Cable Car Pvt Ltd, Chandra Prasad Dhakal, said with the operation of Lumbini cable car, a new religious and tourism destination has been added in Basantapur. He shared, ‘We became successful to construct and bring Lumbini cable car into operation due to the love, goodwill and support of federal government, Lumbini province government, local government as well as local brothers and sisters.’

It is believed that the cable car connecting Rupandehi and Palpa districts would help in economic and social transformation of Rupandehi, Palpa, Nawalparasi, Kapilvastu districts as well as overall Lumbini Province. This project would be a milestone to fulfill the desire and wish of political leaders and people of Lumbini Province of making Rupandehi as the financial capital of Lumbini Province, mentioned Chair Dhakal. He also announced of a new campaign for construction of cable car religious tourism circuit. In the first phase, Rs 1.5 billion has been invested for the construction of cable car.

The total cost of the cable car project along with resort is Rs 5 billion. Restaurants have already been constructed at top station of cable car while hotel, children playground, skywalk, zipline are under construction. The bottom station is 230 meters above the sea level and top station is 940 meters above the sea level. There are 25 gondolas in the cable car. One can reach top station within 10 minutes travel from bottom station.