The government has registered a resolution in the parliament for the approval of the Montreal Convention (MC99) on increasing the compensation rate for the families of the victims due to the air accident.
Rabindra Adhikari, Minister of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation (MoCTCA) has filed a proposal for the approval of the Parliament on Wednesday.
After 60 days of approval, the convention has to be arranged for implementation process. The cabinet had opened the way to Parliament, with the approval of the Council on June, 2018. According to the rules, compensation for the dead, injured and cargo of international air accidents will be claimed.The compensation amount received by the family of the victims will increase from 20,000 to 1, 60,000 US Dollars.
After the approval of the Parliament, it will open way for implementation of the Montreal Convention. The government will send a letter to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) for the implementation of the Montreal Convention approved by the Parliament.
Pramod Nepal, Under Secretary of MoCTCA stated that with the approval of ICAO, compensation for the plane crash will be dispatched according to the Montreal convention. He also said that mainly, two responsibilities have been taken on the Montreal convention regarding compensation amount. Nepal is now a member of the ‘Warsaw Convention 1929′ and is the member of ‘HagueProtocol 1955’.
According to the Warsaw convention, the families of the victims who lost their lives in plane crash will be compensated with 20,000 US Dollars. However, after Nepal became the member of ‘Montreal Convention’, 20,000 US dollars will be increase to $1, 13,100 Special Drawing Right (SDR) which is Rs 1,58,900 dollars. According to that, the families of the victims lost their lives in the accident and those who were suffering from disability get more than Rs.10 million. In this case, there is also a limit of unlimited liability to claim insurance in the event of a weakness of the Airlines Company in the aircraft crash.
ICAO played a major role in bringing Montreal Convention, saying that the compensation received for the accident was very low. According to that, on May 28, 1999 the proposal for increasing compensation was proposed. The Montreal Convention was introduced on November 4, 2003 worldwide.
A total of 191 members of the ICAO, 131 nations are in favor of the Montreal Convention. There is a system that can be fought for unlimited insurance funds based on the country from where the flight was conducted, destination to where the flight will be landed, country where business is hosted, country with aircraft registration and countrywide passengers. However, in the earlier Warsaw Treaty, there was no provision to fight for unlimited insurance on the basis of where passengers are from.
Deputy Secretary Nepal said that Nepal after being member of Montreal Convention, Nepalese travelers will receive the compensation wherever they are travelling in any nation’s airlines. He also said that according to provision, the destruction, loss, damage in the carriage of baggage, the liability is limited to 1,139 SDR and the compensation of cargo in the destruction, loss, damage is limited to 19 SDR per kg. in the same way, apart from this, delayed compensation is also arranged which is limited to 4,694 SDR.
Similarly, the government will formulate new laws and implement them for internal air passengers. Currently, the domestic airline also has only 20,000 dollars for compensation.
