Who cares about it?
The Himalayan
Times
25 October
2016
Who cares about it?
Nepal
is gradually losing its beauty in many ways and sliding down in the index of
naturally beautiful country to visit once in a life time. There could be many
reasons behind this. One of them is the government’s poor governance, including
the effective implementation of its laws, policies, rules and responsibilities
which are the mechanisms needed to effectively and efficiently run the country.
There is no proper monitoring and supervisions in place in the government owned
organizations and semi-organizations. Most of such offices are heavily
politicized and are run carelessly. Corruption is rampant and has been
institutionalized causing the state to slide down in the global corruption
index. Who cares?
It
was sad to read the news item “Kathmandu Airport ranked one of the worst in the
world” (THT, 23 October, Page 1) to read at such a time when the tourist season
is fully on. Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) has been named as one of the
worst international airport among the 10 other worst international airport in
the world. I am not sure whether this shocking news touched the heart of the
concerned. But, the travel business communities must have been disappointed
because of their heavy investment in this sector. However, they do not seem to
be disturbed and bothered looking at their poor or zero initiatives to bring
improvements in these areas. Otherwise, they should have exerted positive
pressure on the government for maintaining world class standard of this one and
only the international airport of the country.
According
to a recent survey, long immigration lines with multiple annoying checkpoints
at the international terminal remain too tiring for the incoming tourists. Smelly
toilets, irritating immigration officials, long cue in luggage collection belts
and poorly managed luggage checking system have been the examples of poor
management of the airport. However, it was surprising to know that the
concerned officials blame the surveyors for being biased against them. The
condition of the domestic terminal is even worst. It seems that despite
spending millions of rupees in the expansion and rehabilitation, the Civil
Aviation Authority of Nepal has completely failed to identify and meet the
needs of the travellers.
Rai Biren Bangdel
Maharajgunj
