BAJURA, NOVEMBER 4

Lack of air tickets has been a major bane for residents of the remote Humla and Bajura districts. As plane tickets are few and far between, hundreds of passengers are stranded in Bajura's Kolti and Humla's Simkot airports.

Mostly affected are the residents of Humla, a district that is yet to be linked by road. Twenty-four-year-old Pabitra Singh Shahi of Simkot Rural Municipality-7, Panglathung, waited at the airport for five days before she finally got a ticket to Nepalgunj. Shahi, who is sick, was referred elsewhere for advanced medical care by the district hospital of Humla last week. The ticket didn't come easy; she got one following the initiative of CDO Sita Pariyar and DSP Krishnaraj Ojha.

All are not as lucky as Shahi. Earlier, a pregnant woman of Surkegad Rural Municipality-7 died from profuse bleeding for days. She could be taken out for treatment due to lack of air ticket.

The ticket problem is also seen during the festival, when people coming home or leaving home can't get ticket. Five airlines - Nepal, Summit, Tara, Sita and Goma - conduct flights to Bajura and Karnali districts. But as there are a few flights, they are not enough.

Meanwhile, even as the residents of these districts are thus facing problems due to lack of enough flights, political leaders are not affected.

They can be seen flying to and from here whenever they want. While chief minister of the province reached Humla on a Summit Air flight, amidst the suffering of locals due to lack of air tickets, for his election campaign, UML's Chhakka Bahadur Lama too flew to Humla on a Sita Air flight.

Fed up with their plight, people stranded at Simkot Airport chanted slogans demanding air tickets today.

A version of this article appears in the print on November 5, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.