KATHMANDU, Aug 12: The government is preparing to officially inaugurate Visit Nepal 2020 and Tribhuvan International Airport as a boutique airport on January 1, 2020.

Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Minister has directed the concerned authorities to make necessary preparations for the inauguration of both on the same occasion New Year Day.

The government has allocated Rs 230 million for transforming the sole international airport of the country as the boutique airport.

The Nepal Tourism Board is announcing its annual budget of over Rs 1.75 billion this week, prioritizing the Visit Nepal campaign, which aims to attract 2 million tourists in the country next year.

KATHMANDU, Aug 5: The Nepal Army (NA) has planned to organize several events in a bid to make the Nepal Visit Year 2020 announced by the government a success.

A list of such events includes the historic Liglige race to a seminar on the UN peacekeeping operations.

During an annual progress review meeting of works executed by the Ministry of Defense and NA in the fiscal year 2075-76 BS that had ended on July 16, NA Chief Purna Chandra Thapa said homework had begun for conducting several programs targeting the Visit Nepal 2020.

The government has a target of bringing about two million tourists by the year 2020 AD.

According to Chief of Army Staff Thapa, the NA has realized that it should have some contributions to making the government’s Visit Nepal Year successful and has planned to make an expedition to the world’s highest mountain, to organize a jungle safari and long-route trekking, a triathlon in high-altitude and in plain and a marathon among others, targeting the campaign.

A seminar on the UN peacekeeping operations, the historic Liglige race (of Gorkha) and a paragliding will be held to encourage armies in neighboring countries to visit Nepal, according to him.

The NA chief pledged cooperation with the ministries concerned to make the Year successful. RSS

KATHMANDU, July 11: The federal and state governments jointly have declared 101 tourist destinations in Karnal State (79 destinations declared by Ministry of Karnali State for Industry, Tourism, Forest and Environment, and 17 by federal government).

The governments acted on recommendations by local levels and State Assembly members related to the field.

Minister for Industry, Tourism, Forest and Environment of Karnali State, Nanda Singh Buda informed that budget has been allocated for infrastructure development of 38 tourist destinations of the total declared ones for the fiscal year of 2019/20.

“Budget will be mobilized in line with a master plan for new tourist destinations to be made following the formation of the state tourism board. We failed to allocate budget in all tourist destinations due to limited resources. Budget will be set aside in these destinations in the coming fiscal years,” he said.

The Ministry has a total of Rs 2.45 billion budget for the FY 2019/20. RSS

By Achyut Regmi

Foreign tourists in Nepal have started reaching the police with complaints of theft, looting, pick-pocketing, abuse against them and so on.

Police received such complaints through the tourist police mechanism established bearing in mind the safety issues of foreign tourists arriving in Nepal.

In the first 11 months of the current fiscal year, 600 such complaints were registered with the police.

The tourist police’s duties and responsibilities include dissemination of information needed by tourists, an investigation into the received complaints and taking action if necessary, controlling tourist guide business operated by those without a license, and to initiate a process for action in consultation with embassy concerned in case of criminal cases.

Similarly, conducting surveillance of hotels and travel, trekking and rafting agencies is the responsibility of tourist police.

According to the Tourist Police Unit, Bhrikutimandap Chief Police Inspector Amrit Bahadur Basnet, most of the complaints (454) are relating to the missing of personal belongings.

Similarly, the complaints of theft are 98 while the number of cases of cheating is 24.

Three are related to lootings, six are about pick-pocketing, four are about abuse, one is related to the accident, four are concerned with losing and six falls under the category of others.

The tourist police have now been providing service to tourists from 10 places in Kathmandu Valley and 16 places out of the Valley.

The office has expanded its service at Bouddha of Kathmandu, Patihani of Chitwan and Bandipur of Tanahun in this current fiscal year.

With the government’s announcement of celebrating Visit Nepal Year 2020, necessity and relevance of tourist police have further increased.

Tourist Police In-charge, Basnet said that tourist police have been demanded for nine major tourism destinations including Rara Lake, Banke, Kanchnapur, Ilam and Dhankuta, in order to provide services required for tourists.

Similarly, tourist police have brought ‘Tourist Police Mobile App’ into operation for the security of tourists as well as to resolve possible problems.

A tourist can easily get various information including location of tourist police, hotline number, activities he/she can do or could not do during their stay in Nepal and ways to inform police if any incident takes place through the App.

A Metropolitan Tourist Information Centre has been operated at Thamel, a major tourism thoroughfare in Kathmandu where 90 percent of the foreign visitors coming to Nepal are said to visit.

With the coming into operation of the tourist information center in Thamel, Tourist Police will provide its services and facilities from Thamel.

Before this, Tourist Police had been providing its services from Bhrikuti Mandap. Although Tourist Police is a branch of Nepal Police, they have been getting the services and facilities from the Department of Tourism.

Tourist Police are facing problems like lack of a guideline for mobilizing the tourist police, lack of knowledge about the language spoken in various countries and lack of the required training.

Department of Tourism’s director-general Danduraj Ghimire said the tourist police service would be expanded to other places as well based on the need.

“We study the demand for tourist police coming from new places and forward the same to the Nepal Police. We assign tourist police to these places once we get the approval from Nepal Police,” he said, explaining the process about the assignment of tourist police in new places.

According to him, tourist police have played a significant role in the promotion of tourism in Nepal.

He reiterated that the Department is serious regarding the development of the tourism sector which is the backbone of the country’s economy.

RUNWAY EXPANSION PROJECT TO BE COMPLETED BY JUNE

KATHMANDU, Feb 26: The Tribhuvan International Airport runway rehabilitation and expansion project will be completed by the end of June. The extending runway will be extended by 300 meters at the southern end (runway 02), according project chief, Babur Ram Poudel.

The rehabilitation and expansion of the TIA expansion project package NCB 01 will be carried out by Kalika-Tundi JV, who obtained the contract after the Chinese company Shanxi Construction Group left the project.

Poudel said that they are committed to complete the project in time.

Meanwhile, The Civil Aviation Office of TIA has decided to close the flights for 10 hours every day in view of the expansion works. The runway will be closed between 10 pm to 8 am every day from April 1. TIA operates 21 hours a day.

Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Minister Rabindra Adhikari inspected the site on Friday to take stock of the progress of the expansion project, which began in November 2017.

According to Minister Adhikari, the government is committed to complete all the expansion and rehabilitation project of the TIA by next year in order to meet the targets set by Visit Nepal 2020—which plans to bring one million tourists to Nepal in the year 2020 under its campaign.

The runway expansion projects NCB 02 international terminal building expansion and NCB 03 utility works are in the final phase, according to TIA.