Committees formed to suggest NAC, NTB restructuring

THE Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation has formed two committees to recommend structural and functional restructuring of the Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) and Nepal Tourism Board (NTB). The two bodies under the ministry, which are supposed to play a vital role in Nepal’s tourism promotion, are underperforming due to various reasons. A committee led by Purna Chandra Bhattarai, joint-secretary at the ministry, has been asked to carry out assessment for structural and functional changes required at NTB to make it more professional. The committee has been given a three-week time to submit its report. Another committee is led by Ranjan Krishna Aryal, joint-secretary at the ministry. “As it has been more than 15 years since NTB has been working under the same objective and same organisational structure, the ministry thinks it’s time for its functional reform in line with the changing scenario,” said Sushil Ghimire, secretary at the ministry. NTB has been facing multiple problems. For example, the NTB board has been struggling to appoint its new chief executive and has remained headless for the last two years. Besides, the budget allocated for the promotion of Nepal tourism in national and international arenas has not been effectively mobilised. Other issues, NTB officials said, are the lack of professional development activities for the staffers in the absence of an effective leadership on the board. NTB has been mandated to spend its revenues to promote Nepal in the global arena, but travel trade entrepreneurs say it has not been able to fully utilise its resources. The country has been seeing a continued growth in the number of tourists for the last three years and the arrivals have boosted its income. “But unfortunately, spending for promotional activities has been very poor,” said an NTB official. NTB’s budget jumped to Rs 580 million this fiscal year from Rs 388 million. “The committee will evaluate the existing structure and its functioning style and recommend for needed changes,” said Ghimire, who also chairs the NTB board. “The reforms will be based on the level of productivity performance of NTB.” NTB was established in 1998 as an autonomous body to function as a model agency with public-private partnership approach. Meanwhile, the ministry plans to convert the troubled national flag carrier into a public limited company. Ghimire said there are a lot of options for the government — either operating under the in public private partnership model or bringing in a strategic partner. “Besides, there are a number of Acts and regulations that need to be amended in line with the current trend so that NAC is exposed to the market competition,” Ghimire said. For years, successive governments have been making efforts to improve the state-run enterprise’s performance, but with limited success. Proposals on bringing in a strategic partner for NAC had been tabled at the Finance Ministry several times, but to no avail. The committee will evaluate the existing structure and its functioning style and recommend for needed changes