- The World Bank Group’s Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman (CAO) is assessing a complaint by Nepal’s Indigenous Yakthung (Limbu) people over the International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) advisory involvement in the controversial Pathibhara cable car project, formally registered in December 2025.
- The cable car, planned on land sacred to the Yakthung people and near the Kanchenjunga Conservation Area, has sparked protests over alleged violations of Indigenous rights, forest clearance, threats to wildlife and inadequate environmental assessment.
- Complainants argue the IFC failed to transparently disclose its advisory support to IME Group until late in the project, raising questions about accountability and compliance with IFC safeguards, despite the IFC saying it exited the advisory agreement early and did not directly support the Pathibhara project.
- The case will undergo a 90-day CAO assessment to determine whether it proceeds to dispute resolution or a compliance review, amid ongoing legal challenges and community protests.
KATHMANDU — A cable car line is being built to serve the mountaintop temple of Pathibhara Devi, a popular pilgrimage destination for Hindus in eastern Nepal. But the area is also revered by the region’s Indigenous Yakthung (or Limbu) people, many of whom have objected to the clearing of trees that they say will weaken the spiritual power that the site holds according to their beliefs.
The World Bank Group’s Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman (CAO) says it is looking into a complaint filed by the Yakthung people against the International Finance Corporation (IFC) — the private sector investment arm of the World Bank Group — for providing advisory support to a controversial cable car project in their ancestral land.
The CAO recently confirmed to Mongabay that it had received the complaint filed in August 2025 and it meets the ombudsman’s criteria for formal registration. “As the Nepal cable car complaint met these criteria, it is now in the assessment phase of the CAO process,” Emily Horgan, communications and outreach lead at CAO, told Mongabay via email referring to the ombudsman’s policy of accepting a complaint if it concerns an IFC or MIGA (Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency) project.
Horgan said that the Pathibhara issue also falls within the CAO’s mandate to address potential environmental and social impacts of projects. The CAO’s registry states that the complaint was accepted for review on Dec. 12, 2025.
Project developer Pathibhara Devi Darshan Cable Car Pvt. Ltd., part of the IME Group led by prominent Nepali tycoon Chandra Prasad Dhakal, and its supporters say the project will boost tourism, create jobs and provide better access for pilgrims who currently need to undertake a strenuous high-altitude trek to the temple.
The sacred site, located on the edge of the Kanchenjunga Conservation Area in eastern Nepal, is home to threatened wildlife species such as red pandas (Ailurus fulgens), and legally protected high-value trees such as the Himalayan yew (Taxus wallichiana).
Local people have been protesting against the project as forest clearance began. In January 2025, Nepal police and armed police forces fired rubber bullets on protestors, leaving a few community members injured. A lawsuit against the project is sub judice at the Supreme Court.
“The IFC provided advisory support to IME Group for the disputed cable car project. We reached out to the CAO to know what the support actually included,” said Prabindra Shakya, an advisor to the complainants from Asia Indigenous Peoples on Extractive Industries and Energy (AIPNEE).
Shakya said the need for investigation was crucial given the possible gaps in IFC’s inconsistent activities within the project, specifically its failure to publicly disclose the advisory support for the Pathibhara project.
Although the project began in September 2022, IFC publicly disclosed its involvement only in July 2024, two months ahead of the project’s closure in September 2024. “Only then did the complainants know that the IFC was supporting the IME cable car project,” Shakya, who facilitated the filing of the complaint, told Mongabay.
The IFC, in the project disclosure, said its advisory support for these projects incorporated upstream engagement that was focused on supporting the IME Group with technical analysis and providing corporate governance advice.
An IFC spokesperson who wished to remain anonymous as it was “against official policy,” said the corporation did not invest in, develop or provide advice related to the Pathibhara cable car project but had an initial agreement to provide phased advisory services to Dreams Hills Pvt. Ltd., an affiliate of the IME Group. This advisory activity, however, was closed early in August 2024.“We are cooperating fully with the CAO process as part of our principles of transparency, constructive dialogue, and our commitment to delivering sustainable development impact,” said the spokesperson by email.
The complaint also argues that although the IFC terminated its agreement with IME before any work began on the four cable car projects, including Pathibhara, it still has active projects with Global IME Bank Ltd., one of Nepal’s largest commercial banks promoted by the IME Group.
Shankar Limbu from The Lawyer’s Association for Human Rights of Nepalese Indigenous Peoples (LAHURNIP), the complainant’s legal counsel, said these activities clearly show IFC’s non-compliance, reluctance to provide information, raising doubts and concerns over its support to the IME Group.
Despite IFC exiting the project, the complainants say they decided to submit the complaint under the 2021 policy update of CAO that allowed complaints on projects within 15 months of IFC exit.
IME Group spokesperson, Himal Neupane, refused to comment on the issue when Mongabay reached out for comments.
Shree Lingkhim, one of the complainants and a member of Mukkumlung Conservation Joint Struggle Committee, told Mongabay that the community people defended to protect and safeguard their sacred territories and spiritual heritage that was under threat from the project. “We are relieved that the complaint was eligible for CAO investigation and hopeful that the case will be investigated without bias to help restore the justice of our people and communities.”
Mongabay’s previous reports show the project also faced criticisms over its environmental assessment, which was found to omit key species in its Initial Environmental Examination (IEE), bypassing the need for a full environmental impact assessment (EIA) and felling of more trees than allowed in the IEE.
“The IFC should be questioned for its accountability and transparency for the support they provided, despite the project clearly violating Indigenous rights and the community’s right to free, prior and informed consent [FPIC],” Lingkhim said.
Limbu says the project raises questions over the IFC’s performance standards and safeguards that ensure all project activities are aligned with the rights and self-determination of Indigenous peoples and biodiversity conservation.
According to Horgan from the CAO, the fate of the case will be clear after a 90-day assessment period during which the parties may decide to engage in a dispute resolution process facilitated by CAO, or request that the complaint move to CAO’s compliance function for an appraisal of IFC’s environmental and social performance.
“CAO’s assessment process does not entail a judgment on the merits of the complaint; it rather seeks to understand the parties’ perspectives and empower them to make informed decisions about how to address the issues raised in the complaint,” she added.
Banner image: In the weeks since the deforestation in May, banda (protest) organizers launched a campaign to replant 20,000 saplings. Image by Prabin Seling ‘Sendow’.
Cable car project in Nepal under fire for flawed environmental review
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