KATHMANDU, Nepal-Even though the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation (MoCTCA) initiated a process to take stern action against tourism entrepreneurs operating illegally after accomplishing a through investigations, the Ministry’s attempts to combat against fraud entrepreneurs did not seem effective due to the lack of tough law on the part of the government.
Legal provision has it that, the Ministry can only charge a maximum fine of Rs 20,000 on the entrepreneurs who brought in hundreds of thousands of foreign currencies by operating disallowed tourism businesses for years. Unfortunately, those fraud entrepreneurs frequently took up to the business after paying the specific amount as fixed by the government of Nepal.
The ministry has garnered information about around 10, 00 illegal entrepreneurs operating across the nation following a deep investigation by the government.
Mohan Krishna Sapkota, joint secretary at the Ministry informed that the officials at the Ministry were stepping up the process to bust on tour, travels and trekking agencies, rafting operators, hotels, restaurants, trekking guides and other tourism related businesses which are functioning illegally in the country.
He also informed that the Ministry which sanctioned fake entrepreneurs would also taken initiatives to adopt a tough measure this time as well adding that they were increased vigilance to monitor over the activities of the fraud businesses with help of professional and genuine institutions.
Tourism experts have been long been complaining that the sector is becoming insecure and the government lost huge amount in revenues due to illegal operations.
Increasing vigilance over the fraud business, the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) a central bank of Nepal has also claimed that the tourism entrepreneurs were involved in suspicious activities.
In the meantime, the ministry officials confessed that they fraud entrepreneurs have not be been blacklisted till now after getting immense pressure from their leaders.
