Government’s Negative Actions
Government’s Negative Actions
Siddhi B Ranjitkar
May 26, 2018
Kathmandu: The news from Nepalgunj in the “artha-bazaar” supplement to “gorkhapatra” stated on May 25, 2018 that the Ministry of Civil Aviation has stopped the airlines companies from taking up the charter flights charging more than double the amount of the regular flights to the hill areas of the province-5, the Karnali province, and province-7. Another news from Simikot, Humla in the same supplement stated that the local folks have been unhappy with the actions of the government, and they said that it went against the interest of the common folks, and it needed to be corrected because the government had eliminated the flights that had offered a discount rate for flights once a week.
The news stated that the Ministry of Civil Aviation discontinued the charter flights from Nepalgunj because the private airlines companies had been running charter flights and charging the charter flights fare even for the regular flights. If it is true then the airlines companies have been robbing the customers charging more than double the amount of the regular flights in the name of charter flights.
Why the ministry did not take strong actions against the airlines for obviously robbing the customers if they were really doing what the news stated they had been. Rather the government cancelled the charter flights disregarding the tremendous inconvenience it caused to the customers that could and willing to pay higher prices for the charter flights.
The government that has been hyping so much that it would have a zero tolerance for corruption, however, has totally failed in curbing the evident corruption. If the airlines companies had been running the charter flights instead of regular flights then probably it must be daylight robbery and it would come under the corruption. Now, the question was why the government did not take the actions against the airlines companies under the Corruption Control Act rather than simply stopping the charter flights, which had denied the folks to travel fast.
The government has also been saying in loud voices that it would strictly follow the rule of law. If the rule of law were to be correctly understood then the government’s actions would be punishing those airlines companies that had probably been charging the airfare at the rate of charter flights even for the regular flights rather than doing away with the charter flights. In this case, the government could not escape from the accountability simple stopping the charter flights.
Why the government has not taken legal actions against the airlines companies that probably have been violating the rule of law is the mystery. It is probably favoring the airlines companies rather than the customers, as the local folks of Humla have stated to the reporter of the “artha-bazaar.”
The Ministry of Civil Aviation needed to bring the airlines companies that has run the charter flights instead of the regular flights as stated in the news in “artha-bazaar’ to justice. However, the ministry has probably disregarded the rule of law, and took the decision on getting rid of the charter flights without any due consideration of the comfort for the customers.
Probably, due to the wrong and even illogical decision of the ministry, airlines have done away with the charter flights. So, the non-availability of charter flights would surely have caused troubles to the customers, and heavily hampered their businesses. All these things bring us to think that the government that has been so publicly saying that it would do everything for the people has not really been doing what it has been saying to do.