Nepal to privatise airline, resume services

Nepal Airlines will resume its services from India very soon. The airline, which stopped its services to India around four years back, is being reengineered and will start flights from Kolkata to Kathmandu. The government is also moving towards privatisation of the airline.‘‘Once privatised, we will start flights from Kolkata to Kathmandu,” said Gobind Prasad Kusum, Nepal’s consul-general in Kolkata. ‘‘We are hopeful that operations will resume from next year,” he added. Nepal is getting back to normal after years of Maoist insurgency, and the Maoists have agreed not to disturb the peace process in the Comprehensive Peace Accord signed recently. "They have also agreed not to cause any discomfort to the business community and Industry," said Kusum. According to government figures, 2.90 lakh tourists visited Nepal by air last year. This year, tourist inflow by air is much higher and has touched 2.28 lakh during the period from June to October. The figure is expected to touch 3 lakh, of which one-third is expected to be Indian tourists. Keeping the growth of tourism industry in mind, the Nepalese government has come out with Aviation Policy, 2006 which allows 100% private investment in the airports.

At an interface organised by Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), Kusum said India-Nepal bilateral trade has been almost $ 2 billion in 2005-06. At least 343 Indian companies have joint ventures with Nepalese companies with an investment of Rs 34,886 million. Even that is not enough, as there is much scope for investment in the areas like hydropower, infrastructure, agro-based industries specially tea and coffee, cement industry, manufacturing industry like textiles, garments, pharmaceuticals and service sector like information technology, hospitals and tourism. The country, with a population of 25 million, had seen GDP growth drop from 6% to 2.5% because of the Maoist insurgency. "After the restoration of Loktantra or democracy, it has started picking up," said Kusum. It now stands at 2.6%. He pointed out that Nepal imports everything from needles to helicopters from India. The republic is also a transit point between India and China. Moreover, since Tibet is close to Nepal, Indian companies would find it easier to access the market in Tibet also. The strategic location of Nepal makes it more lucrative for Indian investments.

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