India agrees to provide additional cross-border air route

Kathmandu, June 16: The joint meeting of high level aviation delegation between Nepal and India has agreed to develop new cross-border air-routes from Janakpur and Biratnagar and Mahendranagar.

The meeting between Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) and Airport Authority of India (AAI) that concluded on Saturday has agreed to make the Kathmandu-Biratnagar and Kathmandu-Janakpur air routes two-way. Both the parties also agreed to make Janakpur-Patna air-route two-way.

Similarly, the existing Kathmandu-Mahendranagar-New Delhi air-route would be made two way for lower flight service operations.

Technical teams will conduct aviation safety evaluation in order to confirm the technical feasibility of the proposed air routes, said Birendra Prasad Shrestha, Spokesperson of CAAN.

It will open up new air entry point which will facilitate the flights to and fro the Gautam Buddha International Airport, Bhairahawa, proposed Second International Airport, Nijgadh and Pokhara International Airport, and the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA), Kathmandu.

The agreement will also be a milestone in strengthening regional-level airspace cooperation. Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation has said that the new routes were instrumental for the new international airport operations and increasing number of tourist arrival.

Nepal is preparing for the Visit Nepal Year 2020 with an aim of welcoming 2 million tourists, for which it needs to increase the number of long haul flights which couldn’t be managed at the TIA which is already facing severe traffic congestion.

Shrestha said that India will complete the detailed technical evaluation of the entry-points from Nepalgunj and Mahendranagar for flight operation at higher altitude, by September this year. Following the technical evaluation, India will provide the facility to Nepal.

Currently, all aircrafts flying to and fro the only international airport in the country – TIA, are authorised to use the Simara route to make an entry to Nepal.

According to Shrestha, the two sides have also agreed that there was a need of high-level technical cooperation agreement between the two neighbours in order to exchange cooperation on various technical subjects pertaining to Air Navigation Service.

Deputy Director General of Air Navigation Services Directorate at CAAN Narendra Bahadur Thapa and Member of Air Navigation Services and Board Member of AAI Anil Kumar Dutta led the delegation of the respective countries.

Nepal has long been asking India to provide additional cross-border air routes but the issue was formally raised during the visit of the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014.

The issue was included in the joint-statement issued by PM Oli and PM Modi during the former’s India visit in May this year.  The 2-day meeting was organised as mentioned in the statement.

Governments of Nepal and India, in 2016, had agreed to hold technical delegation-level meeting in order to make decision about the new cross-border air routes.

Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 17 June 2018.