It has been found that the luggage left by the passengers at Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA), Kathmandu could not be managed.
Since the airport has not yet developed a procedure on how to manage the cheap or expensive luggage left by the passengers, the effectiveness has been questioned as the luggage has been handed over to the staff.
The Terminal Management Section, at the TIA, said that the left-behind luggage is handled by employees, but any monitoring on regard to seeing the management of left luggage or concern whether it has reached the rightful owner is on the weaker side.
Even lost luggage is made public on the website of TIA in hope that the owner will come and find it.
According to Santosh Kumar Pokhrel, an Airport employee, who takes charge of the abandoned goods, said that they try their best to hand over the goods to the concerned parties, if the owner is not reachable, even after that, then they store them at the airport.
He said, “The main issue here is that there is no legal provision for how many years to keep the abandoned goods or what to do about them if the person concerned does not come in contact with employees. This, in turn, results in the ill management of left behind goods at the airport.”
“There is a problem in handing over the abandoned material. There is a storage of goods as far as 12 years older as there is mention of only the name and tag of the passenger and no contact number,” He added, “More often, the employees in charge of the abandoned goods at TIA are transferred, therefore, there is no record of who and how long the goods are kept.”
Furthermore, there is no monitoring about if the goods have reached the rightful owner or whether the person responsible for taking care of abandoned goods has consumed the material or not.
Vijay Shrestha, Vice-Chairman of Himalaya Airlines has suggested that the revenue could be collected by auctioning the goods that are left for a long time. This will solve the management mishap as well as can generate revenue for the country.
He said that a lot of luggage is left and lost at the airport but it is necessary for the concerned agencies to manage it effectively.
It is observed that delaying goods and perishable goods, as well as expensive electrical, are left with luggage.
He has even suggested that the passengers must themselves be alert about their abandoned luggage as there is no proper monitoring regarding it.
At present, TIA handles about 60 international flights and 250 domestic flights daily. It has been found that most of the material is released from these flights on a daily basis.
Source : TRN,
