UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has expressed concerns over the obstruction of essential supplies on the Nepal-India border.

In response to questions about the situation in Nepal during a regular press briefing in New York on Tuesday, Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Ban, said, “The Secretary-General underlines Nepal’s right of free transit, as a landlocked nation as well as for humanitarian reasons.”

“The Secretary-General calls on all sides to lift the obstructions without further delay,” Dujarric quoted Secretary-General Ban as saying, in the first ever statement from the United Nations on obstruction of essential supplies through Nepal-India border following the promulgation of the constitution on September 20.

Obstruction of supplies through Nepal-India border due to protests in the Tarai region and blockade imposed by India for the last few weeks, Nepal has been going through acute crisis of fuel, medicines and other essentials, with a humanitarian crisis looming large over the country.

“Acute shortages in fuel supplies continue to impede planned deliveries to earthquake-affected villages in Nepal,” said Dujarric, adding that: “Humanitarian organisations urgently require fuel to maintain operations and deliver food, warm clothing and shelter materials to high altitude areas that will soon be cut off by harsh winter conditions.”

Government’s failure to set up the National Reconstruction Authority has resulted in delayed construction works, forcing hundreds of thousands of people who lost their houses in the April earthquake to live in the open for the past seven months.