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CAAN urged to enhance service delivery
KATHMANDU, JAN 01 - Aviation experts gathered in the celebration of fifth anniversary of the establishment of Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) have stressed upon the need to strengthen its service quality and make it more people friendly.
Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Survendranath Sukla addressing the function pointed out on a need to upgrade the service standard of the Authority and bring it up to international standard. “CAAN should be service oriented and passenger friendly,” he added.
It seems CAAN is financially week, but such a situation has come due to the under-utilisation of its resources, said Yubaraj Khatiwada, member of the National Planning Commission (NPC).
The officials of CAAN, meanwhile, claimed that the financial strength of the authority is improving. “We paid back more than one-third of the total loan investment that it owed to the government during the past five years,” Nagendra Ghimire Director General of CAAN said.
According to him, the government had invested Rs 1.33 billion on CAAN at an annual interest rate of 10.25 percent and the CAAN repaid Rs 465.5 million in principal and Rs 400.6 million on interest in the period
CAAN is the only civil aviation body that monitors Nepal’s entire aviation industry and is the operator of country’s almost four dozen airports, including the Tribhuvan International Airport at Kathmandu.
Ghimire, further informed that CAAN has requested the International Civil Aviaiton Organisation (ICAO) to endorse five new air routes that can help Nepal develop as a transit hub or use the Nepali sky for over-flying. With the new routes into enforcement, the flight hour too would be shortened, thus reducing the cost of flight operations.
Speaking on the function, Bikash Rana, the President of Airline Operators Association of Nepal (AOAN) and Viroj Sirihorachai, the representatives of the Board of Airlines Representatives of Nepal stated that the government interventions has seriously affected CAAN’s function, as it has not been able to take important decision on its own.Posted on: 2004-01-01 02:59
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