Nepal’s national aviation authority has been proposed to be divided into the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal and the Air Service Authority of Nepal in the draft Integrated Civil Aviation Bill, allowing the joint secretaries of the Civil Aviation Ministry to take charge of two vital positions.

A five-member panel led by Narendra Thapa, deputy director general of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN), has proposed making a slew of changes to the draft prepared earlier by another government committee.

According to the draft, regulatory functions (like flight crew and non-flight crew licensing, among other tasks) will be under the jurisdiction of CAAN while airports, air navigation services and the civil aviation academy will come under the jurisdiction of the Air Service Authority of Nepal.

The director general of CAAN will be appointed from among the deputy director generals or joint secretaries of the Civil Aviation Ministry. The draft has proposed making the tourism minister the chairman of the regulatory agency. Private sector representatives have been removed from the CAAN board.

According to the draft, a managing director will lead the Air Service Authority of Nepal. A senior official from the existing CAAN or a joint secretary from the ministry can be appointed as its chief. The tourism secretary will be its board chairman, and officials of private airlines and Nepal Airlines Corporation can be appointed as its members.

The draft says that the Civil Aviation Ministry will be solely responsible for fixing

airfares, fees, royalties and other taxes that come from the Air Service Authority of Nepal. It will also have the authority to make decisions on building airports and privatising them. The same authority has been given to the Air Service Authority of Nepal, but it has to get the go-ahead from the government.

With regard to managing the existing employees, the draft says that after the Integrated Civil Aviation Act is enforced, all employees will be kept in a ‘reserve

pool’. They will be given 60 days to pick the agency they want to join.

“They will be inducted into the organisation they choose based on their work, qualification and capacity,” said one of the members who was involved in the draft amendment process.

As the regulator will require a limited workforce, surplus employees will be returned to the pool to be adjusted. The property will be under the Air Service Authority of Nepal.

The new law will integrate previous acts to eliminate conflicts and contradictions between CAAN and the Civil Aviation Ministry, a situation that has been criticised in safety audits conducted by global aviation bodies.

Some senior CAAN officials have raised questions over the proposed modality, particularly the expanded role of the government. There can’t be two boards and ‘authority’ in the same act, one official said. Similarly, the Air Service Authority of Nepal’s sole objective is to do business.

“So, how can a joint secretary become the chief of the airport?”

Besides, a joint secretary cannot look after the safety oversight system in the

country’s aviation regulatory body, he said. “The world has moved to privatise airports. But the draft envisages keeping airports under the grip of the government,” he said, adding that the draft was irrational.

The need to separate CAAN’s regulatory and service provision functions had been raised by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), as its dual functions gave rise to a conflict of interest. Since then, several experts and studies have also recommended separation, but the complexity of such a move prevented it from occurring.

Breaking up CAAN, which is among the components of the $4.2 million Air Transport Enhancement Project funded by the Asian Development Bank, is aimed at facilitating stringent enforcement of safety measures.

Recently, the Tourism Ministry informed the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee that the bill would be introduced in the upcoming winter session of Parliament due to mounting pressure to have Nepal removed from the European Commission’s air safety list.