To operate the infrastructure built to facilitate movement checks at full capacity, 135 officers should be deployed in three shifts, but currently there are only 111 officers working at the desk.
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There are 45 desks at Tribhuvan International Airport immigration to check passengers' documents on both arrival and departure sides. However, due to a shortage of staff, about a dozen desks on both sides are currently empty.
Due to which, the pressure on the airport immigration, which handles thousands of passengers daily, has increased. The Ministry of Home Affairs claims that after the new standards for passengers traveling on visit visas were recently issued, employees do not want to go to the airport immigration.
According to the Immigration Department, there are 23 desks on the departure side and 22 on the arrival side. Work is done in three shifts a day. For this, employees are deployed in 8/8-hour shifts in each shift. To operate the structure built to facilitate movement checks at full capacity, 135 officers should be deployed in three shifts.
According to the records till Monday, there are only 111 officers deployed at the desk. As of 14 Kartik, the day after the revision of the visit visa standards, 121 immigration officers were working at the airport desk.
Ramchandra Tiwari, Director General of the department, claims that the desk is vacant due to lack of manpower. The department has initiated an Organization and Management (O&M) survey to increase the staff. He said that an initiative is being taken to increase the number of officers at the airport immigration through O&M and then the desk will be operated at full capacity.
The number of passengers traveling from the airport daily is more than 19,000 on average. The number of passengers entering and leaving Nepal from 23 to 28 Kartik is 112,935. Of these, 98 percent of the passengers travel from Tribhuvan Airport, according to department officials. However, the airport immigration desk, which checks documents to make passenger movement smooth, organized and quick, has not been fully operational.
In the past, it was alleged that an organized gang operating under the guise of visit visas had systematically obstructed the full operation of the immigration desk in the settings of airlines, immigration employees, police, educational counseling centers, travel agencies, and manpower professionals. After that, attempts were made to open the closed desk by deputing some employees. However, the department has stated that the desk operation is also difficult as the employees who are currently working have returned and the employees who were transferred after the previous strict provisions regarding visit visas were amended and relaxed are also leaving in droves.
In the past, employees used to hire resource forces to go to airport immigration. Immigration was considered attractive for employees as it involved collecting money from passengers going abroad in a gang setting and a certain portion of it reached the employees. The number of people requesting transfers has increased after the government recently relaxed the visit visa criteria and the activities of employees also started coming under the radar of the investigating agencies.
According to the Immigration Department, 23 employees working at the airport have been transferred to the Home Ministry in less than a year. According to the Director General of the Department, Tiwari, some of the transferred employees are yet to be satisfied and most have already left their places of transfer. Senior Immigration Officer Anjan Neupane, who went to the airport on 28 Falgun 2081, has recently been transferred to the Home Ministry. However, he is yet to be satisfied. Another senior immigration officer, Ishwor Dutt Paneru, has also been transferred to the home department.
Immigration officers Resham Bahadur Budha, Krishnananda Joshi, Surya Bahadur Thapa, Dipendra Dahal and Shanti Tamang have been transferred to the Ministry of Home Affairs. Their resignations are yet to be announced, the department has stated. Immigration officers who have been transferred from the airport immigration are Tek Bahadur Mouni, Manoj Sah, Kedar Prasad Khatiwada, Tek Bahadur Karki, Nripjung Shahi, Rudra Bahadur Pachai, Vijay Bhattarai, Santosh Kumar Bhatta, Amrit Prasad Subedi, Narayan Prasad Khanal, and Saurabh Basyal.
Similarly, senior immigration assistants Chakra Bahadur Chand and Umesh Bhattarai have been transferred. Immigration assistants Ram Chandra Sharma and Binod Prasad Aryal are yet to be announced. Computer operator Dhanraj Budha has been transferred. Another operator, Homnath Gautam, is yet to be announced, the department has stated. Similarly, office assistant Pralhad Sapkota has also been transferred.
After the CIAA took the then airport immigration chief Tirtha Raj Bhattarai under control on 7 Jestha 2082 for investigation into the visit visa smuggling case, more than a dozen and a half employees of the airport immigration were removed. They were transferred elsewhere after they were found to be engaging in suspicious activities. After that, employees working in departments, ministries and elsewhere were deployed to the airport. However, less than a year after the last transfer, 23 employees, including 2 deputy secretaries, have sought transfer elsewhere.
On 13 Kartik, Home Minister Om Prakash Aryal amended the visit visa standards-2080 and removed the previous harsh provisions. In addition, an internal circular was issued stating that if passengers are turned away from the immigration counter on various pretexts despite having the prescribed documents, action will be taken against the employees who turn them away. ‘Some parties do not like the initiative to improve the visit visa standards, which is why the number of people seeking transfer has increased,’ said an official from the Home Ministry.
New criteria were issued to remove the strict provisions introduced in the past for obtaining a visit visa, and a Nepali passport with a validity of 6 months, a visa for the destination country, an air ticket for departure from the destination country, documents submitted for going abroad, and a 'self-declaration' about the risks of the trip. Along with this, the Immigration Department says that the gang's work of torturing passengers is also gradually coming under control. At this time, after some airlines started offloading (returning) passengers by making excuses, the Immigration Department has now made arrangements on Sunday to offload only after explaining the reason.
According to Director General Tiwari, from now on, all airlines operating international flights will have to prepare a statement with the reason for offloading passengers and send it to the department daily. If it is found that passengers who arrived with the documents specified by the government are returned without being given boarding passes on various pretexts, the airline will have to refund all the financial liability created by this, and the relevant persons involved in this will be brought under the ambit of investigation, he said.
In the past, those going on a visit visa had to have a passport, visa, foreign currency equivalent to 500 US dollars, a return air ticket, hotel booking, a document revealing three-generation relationship details if staying with relatives, and a self-declaration for those traveling to the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and Saudi Arabia. There was a debate about removing the controversial provision after the trend of paying money through gangs and reaching abroad through the same gang network did not stop.
