Two long-pending aviation bills, whose passage would have hastened the removal of Nepal from the European Commission's air safety list, are expected to enter Parliament next week, two top sources privy to the matter said.

The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal Bill and the Air Service Authority of Nepal Bill envisage splitting Nepal’s aviation regulatory body into two entities—service provider and regulator, a condition for Nepal to be struck off the air safety list.

Nepali carriers have been barred from flying in Europe due to safety issues since 2013.

“The bills have been presented to the Cabinet seeking in-principle approval to register them in the lower house of Parliament,” said Buddhi Sagar Lamichhane, joint secretary at the Tourism Ministry. “Tuesday's Cabinet meeting may allow the Tourism Ministry to register the bills in Parliament.”

Lamichhane said they have received the consent of the Finance and Law ministries to table the bills in the Cabinet.

On August 2, 2021, the upper house unanimously passed the two aviation bills which had been languishing for a year and a half as political squabbling engulfed the country. They were registered on February 23, 2020.

The bills then went to the Parliament Secretariat which included them on the agenda of a meeting of the lower house scheduled for March 2, 2022

But on the day the bills were supposed to be discussed, the then Tourism Minister Prem Bahadur Ale asked the Parliament Secretariat to hold them back, explaining that some employees of the aviation regulator were opposed to the planned fragmentation of their organisation.

Two weeks later, on March 15, the then President Bidya Bhandari prorogued the Federal Parliament. As a result, the bills went into deep storage.

A Tourism Ministry official told the Post that Tourism Minister Sudan Kiranti has taken the initiative to register the bills in Parliament after his predecessors—Ale and Jeevan Ram Shrestha—showed no interest in getting them passed.

“But things might not be easy,” said Sanjiv Gautam, former director general of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal as some powerful government officials and top officials at the civil aviation body have been preventing the bills from being passed for a long time.

An official at the civil aviation body told the Post that the trade unions there were preparing to launch a protest against the government’s move to pass the bills.

“They are readying to hold a protest as soon as the bills are registered in Parliament.”

The Post has obtained an unsigned copy of the statement made two weeks ago which contains the plan of the five trade unions to launch the protest. In the statement, the unions have referred to the government as the “mafia”.

But Lamichhane is confident that the bill will be passed this time. “Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal himself has shown interest in the bills, and has asked the ministry to table them in the Cabinet as soon as possible.”

Last August, in the final report of the Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme (USOAP) conducted in April of the same year, the United Nations International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) urged Nepal to break up the aviation regulator with a clear demarcation of its powers and responsibilities because its dual functions gave rise to a conflict of interest.

The Post has a copy of the audit.

Insiders say there is larger politics to prevent the bills from being passed into law. They say that once the civil aviation body is separated, some top position holders will lose the dual benefits they have been receiving.

The existing system allows the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal’s director general and other top officials to issue tenders for multi-billion dollar projects. The same person also has the plum job of overseeing compliance with the project and the aviation regulations governing the issuance of licences to airlines and crews.

“No one wants to lose this scope and power. That’s why, despite intense pressure, it has become hard to separate the civil aviation body for a long time,” Rameshwar Thapa, president of the Airlines Operators Association of Nepal, the apex body of Nepal’s private airlines, had told the Post last year.

Such dual functions lead to a conflict of interest, the European Commission, for example, has maintained.

The former chiefs of the civil aviation body have also been reiterating that the civil aviation body has been acting as both demon and exorcist.

The government has been working on the proposed legislation since 2009 when Nepal made a commitment to ICAO to separate the civil aviation body during its safety audit in 2009. But the process has been held up by the bureaucracy at every step.

The government first announced the proposal in its Three Year Interim Plan 2007-08 to 2009-10, which stated, “In the context of the completion of the study on the institutional strengthening of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, which has been working as the service provider in civil aviation, airport operator and regulator; implementation of doable recommendations suggested by the report are being considered.”

Since then, every periodic plan and policy, including the annual budget, has accorded priority to separating the civil aviation body. But the plan has never been implemented.

The budget for the next fiscal year 2022-23, on May 29, too has announced separating the civil aviation body.

Every successive tourism minister and political leaders have been constantly pledging to the diplomatic community that Nepal will pass the bills and start the process to have it removed from the bad books of the European Commission.

In December 2013, the European Commission imposed a blanket ban on Nepali airlines from flying into the 28-nation bloc after the September 2012 crash of Sita Air Flight 601 at the Manohara River near Kathmandu airport minutes after take-off. Nineteen people, including seven British citizens, died in the disaster.

The commission became more concerned after that fatal crash, and it prevented airlines from Nepal from entering the continent as the country reported a spate of air accidents over the years. Between 2008 and 2012, Nepal saw at least two air crashes a year.

The European Union, since then, has been watching Nepal’s air safety development process closely.

Nepal’s aviation sector has been booming with air traveller numbers reaching nearly 10 million with billions in investment in the industry.

Tourism entrepreneurs say that since Nepal has three international airports now, it’s crucial for the country to act promptly. They say that if Nepal fails to pass the bills and follow the sanction list, it will spell disaster for Nepal’s ailing tourism industry.