Nepal-India air route meet uncertain
February 8, 2017-Kathmandu
The date for Nepal-India joint technical meeting about air routes remains uncertain. As per the previous talk, both the parties had decided to sit on for talks by last week of February.
Indians controversial proposal to allow overnight stay for air marshal in Kathmandu has been hinted as the reason for the uncertainty.It was reported that the Indian team earlier had gave importance to the second round meeting. But after Nepalese criticized Indian proposal for granting then the permission for overnight stay of their air marshal leaded for the uncertainty.
The first round of meeting between the parties was conducted forty five days earlier.Civil Aviation authority of Nepal had conducted a nine member committee headed by Sudhir Kumar Chaudhary, Director of Flight Operation Department to carry the meeting.
As per the source, CAAN had twice written to the Aviation Authority of India on 11 and 31 of last month to confirm a date and venue for the meeting. But the authority from India has not responded to the message.
The Indian team had agreed for two Trans-Himalaya air routes by defining Kathmandu-Mahendranagar-Delhi air route (L626) to be bio-directional. The team had also approved Lhasa-Kathmandu-Bharatpur-Bhairahawa-Delhi B345 and Kathmandu-Jaleswor-Patna G335 bio-directional routes.
Since CAAN and Tourism Ministry are to add three new additional international airports i.e. Nijgad, Bhairawa and Pokhara. So the authorities were also planning to discussion to request for some additional air routes with the south neighboring nation suitable for new airports.
