A Gift I Cannot Fly: My Drone and the Civil Aviation Office

A gift from my brother

My brother came back from Australia, and he brought me a present: a small drone. He knows me. He knows I spend my life looking at mountains and trying to photograph them.

I was happy like a child. I thought of the valleys I walk through, and how they would look from a little higher up.

But I am a guide. I tell my guests to follow the rules of this country, so I must follow them first. Before flying anything, I went to register it.

At the front desk

I went to the Civil Aviation office with my drone and my papers.

At the front desk sat a woman whose job, as I understand it, is to help the सेवाग्राही, the people who come for a service. I greeted her and began to explain. She was busy with her files. She did not really want to talk. When I tried again, she told me: “I am looking at the computer. Don’t you see?”

I saw. I waited.

I do not want to be unfair to her. Perhaps it was a hard day. But a front desk is the face of an office, and at that desk I did not feel like a citizen asking an honest question. I felt like a disturbance.

“हुँदैन, गर्न मिल्दैन”

When my turn finally came, the answer was short.

To register a drone, they ask for a VAT bill, the receipt from the shop. I do not have one. My drone was not bought in a shop in Nepal. It was a gift, carried home in my brother’s bag.

So the answer was the sentence every Nepali knows by heart: “हुँदैन, गर्न मिल्दैन.” It can’t be done. It is not allowed.

There was no other form, no other way, and no “come back with this paper instead”. The rule has a box for a bought drone. It has no box for a gift.

I think this happens often in our offices. The rule is written for the simple case. Real life is not always the simple case, and when it is not, the ordinary good citizen is sent home.

A fee in dollars

There was one more surprise. The registration fee is shown in US dollars.

For a visitor, a dollar price is easy to understand, though I think visitors should have a choice too. But I am Nepali. Most of us are not allowed to hold a dollar account at all, unless we earn in foreign currency, and even then only in special cases.

So a Nepali citizen, in a Nepali office, is shown a price in a currency he cannot legally keep. I still do not understand this.

A portal that does not open, a question nobody answers

I tried the modern way as well. There is an online portal for drone registration. For me, it did not work.

There is also an official enquiry system. I wrote my question there. I am still waiting for a reply.

Either ban it, or make it possible

I want to be fair here. I understand why drones need rules. Nobody should fly near an airport. Nobody should fly over an army camp, or over someone’s courtyard, or above a monastery at prayer time. I agree with all of this, and I tell my guests the same.

But my drone is in the smallest category. It is close to a toy. It is not a machine for spying on anyone.

If such a small thing is truly dangerous, then ban it clearly, and I will accept that. If it is not dangerous, then make the registration simple and possible. What we have now is the worst of both: it is allowed on paper, and in practice an honest person cannot do it.

What this means if you are visiting

I am not writing this to frighten anyone. I am writing it because my guests ask me about drones, and I want to answer honestly.

If it is this difficult for a Nepali who speaks the language and lives in the city, please do not expect it to be quick for a visitor. Start many weeks before you travel. Keep the customs paper from the airport and every receipt you have. And think honestly about whether you need the drone at all.

I have put the rules, as far as anyone can know them, in my guide to flying a drone in Nepal.

The drone on my shelf

So the gift from my brother is still in its case. I have not flown it, because I will not fly it without permission.

Maybe one day the rule will have a box for a gift. Until then, I do what I have always done. I get up early, I walk up the hill, and I wait for the light with a camera in my hands.

The mountains look just as good from the ground. I only wish the office were as easy to climb as the mountain.