Adventure sport paragliding has been resumed at Pokhara after paragliding companies agreed to pay tax to Pokhara metropolitan. Only day before yesterday the metropolitan had stated to halt the paragliding as most companies were found not paying taxes.
Paragliding companies later on Tuesday evening agreed to pay tax during a meeting with the metropolitan officials, Air Sports organization and Nepal paragliding and hand-gliding association. They agreed to pay around 83,000 rupees each which they had not paid since 2072 BS.
However, ban on solo flight has been imposed from yesterday onwards for around couple of weeks as stated by Civil Aviation Authority, Pokhara. The restriction was enforced after series of paragliding incident with following death occurred for past 4 days continuously. On Wednesday, 42 year Russian paragliding pilot Dmitri Stepanishin died after taking a solo paragliding flight from the Sarangkot Hill while Romanian para-glider died after plunging into Fewa Lake on Sunday while on Monday a Portuguese paragliding pilot had met an accident with injuries after he came into contact with the high voltage electric transmission line.
Around 56 companies have been established to operate paragliding among which 1 is only registered. A week of deadline has been given for companies to be registered.
There have been numerous paragliding incident at various time after illegal operation of companies and use of routes which are not permitted being major cause for the reason.
Paragliding pilots have to pay 5650 Nepalese rupees for 15 days permit for paragliding in Pokhara and though some take permits other don’t take permit and operate haphazardly causing various incidents lately.
