Kathmandu, April 10

The Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation (MoCTCA) has formed a ‘think-tank' comprising civil aviation experts which will be responsible to propose the measures related to improvement in domestic civil aviation industry to the government.

Issuing a press statement today, MoCTCA said think-tank will identify prevalent challenges in Nepal's aviation sector and suggest improvement measures directly to the government.

Chaired by Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, Rabindra Adhikari, the 20-member think-tank comprises of former aviation secretaries, civil engineers and officials of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).

MoCTA Spokesperson Ghanashyam Upadhyaya said that the think-tank was formed with an objective to utilise the expertise of different people in the civil aviation industry to improve the entire aviation sector.

“The government will seek suggestions from members of the think-tank while taking decisions related to civil aviation and when formulating new policies or initiating reforms in the sector,” said Upadhyaya.

The think-tank comprises of Lalit Bikram Shah, former regional director of ICAO; former secretaries Birendra Bahadur Deuja, Nagendra Prasad Ghimire and Yagya Prasad Gautam; aviation experts Hari Bhakta Shrestha, Trichandra Manandhar, Ratish Chandra Lal Suman, Kamal Prasad Rimal; Captain PJ Shah; civil engineer Kamal Kumar KC; experts Mahendra Singh Rawal, Uday Shrestha, Yubaraj Kumar Bhattarai, Narayan Bahadur Singh Dangol, Libindra Man Shakya, Suman Kumar Shrestha, Mahendra Raj Bhandari, Prabhakar Adhikari, Prabha Baidya and Hemanta Aryal.

The think-tank is also expected to facilitate MoCTCA while implementing the improvement targets in the civil aviation industry set by the 100-day action plan, which was recently unveiled by MoCTCA.