Lok Bahadur Shahi of Mugu, a remote district in Karnali Province, had come to Nepalgunj for his wife’s medical treatment last month. Shahi and his wife had flown to Nepaljung on a private airline and they have been stranded in the city ever since, as the government has banned airlines from flying passengers without their Polymerase Chain Reaction test reports.

Regular flights to and from Nepalgunj Airport have been halted for the past four months. However, rescue flights are in operation for the districts that are not connected with a road network.

"We were supposed to return home on Friday. We had already boarded the flight but the airline officials asked us to deboard since we did not have our PCR test results,” said Shahi. “We have spent a lot of money on my wife’s treatment and our hotel stay here.”

According to Shahi, there are around 30 people from Mugu, Humla and Jumla who are currently stranded in Nepalgunj.

Nepalgunj Airport Office of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) has stopped issuing flight permits to airlines that do not implement the health and safety protocols set by the government. As per the protocols, a passenger should have a PCR test report, should use face masks at all times and the aircraft should manage sanitiser for all passengers.

Although the authorities have made PCR test reports mandatory for passengers, there are no clear instructions on who should bear the expenses of the tests.

"The governments of the respective provinces are responsible for conducting the PCR tests of their air passengers. We only carry out the PCR tests of seriously ill people," said Naresh Shrestha, the focal person at the District Health Office in Banke.

Meanwhile, the Social Development Ministry of Karnali Province has decided to bar the entry of individuals to the province without a PCR test report effective from August 17. But the ministry has not taken into account the people stranded at domestic airports.

“The provincial government conducts the PCR tests of returnees who enter the province by road. The returnees are kept in quarantine centres where their PCR tests are conducted,” Dal Rawal, Social Development minister of Karnali Province, told the Post. "But we do not have any immediate provisions for conducting PCR tests of those who want to enter the province by air. They will have to conduct a PCR test at their own expense."

But for Anoj Aauji of Bajura, a hill district of Sudurpaschim Province, getting a PCR test is an added expense.

“I flew to Ranjha Airport in Nepalgunj for the treatment of my relative a week ago. I have been staying at a hotel since I arrived in Nepalgunj and don’t have an extra Rs 5,000 for a PCR test.”

According to him, he was allowed to fly from Bajura Airport last week without a PCR test report.

“Now the airport authority in Nepalgunj says we have to get PCR test reports to be able to fly home. I don't know what to do," said Aauji. He and seven other people who came to Nepalgunj together from Bajura are waiting to return home, he said.

The CAAN Nepalgunj Office on Friday cancelled the rescue flights of two private airlines that were scheduled to depart for the hill districts of Karnali and Sudurpaschim provinces, as they were not implementing the health security protocols.

"The airlines had been operating rescue flights by following health security protocols. But of late, they have been found flouting the regulations despite our repeated requests," said Premnath Thakur, chief at the Nepalgunj Airport Office of the CAAN.

"It’s imperative for us to maintain health and safety protocols at all times," said Thakur. “That’s why we have had to cancel scheduled flights to Sudurpaschim and Karnali in the last few days.”

According to Nepalgunj Airport, a total of 15 rescue flights were scheduled to fly to Dolpa, Humla, Mugu and Bajura districts on Sunday.

“The cancellation has obviously put passengers in a fix but we can’t be negligent about health security at a time like this,” Thakur said.

The airlines, meanwhile, expressed their dissatisfaction about the cancellations of the scheduled flights.

"Our flight, which was about to take off for Mugu, was cancelled at the eleventh hour on Friday. This has caused a lot of hassle for the passengers and for the airlines too," said Basanta Malla, the assistant station in-charge of Summit Airlines in Nepalgunj.

(Kalendra Sejuwal contributed reporting from Surkhet)