August 22: The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) has requested different unions of employees to postpone their agitation programme.    
The employees' unions have been protesting against the decision of splitting CAAN into an air service provider and a regulatory body.    
Stating that discussion could be held as the bill related to CAAN is now at the parliamentary committee, the CAAN has urged the agitating staffers to postpone the ongoing protest programme, the state-owned national news agency RSS reported.    
CAAN argued that it is not the right time to organise protest programmes and padlock the office as the parliament session has come to an end. CAAN added that the unions would get opportunity to put forth their views regarding the concerns of the employees during the discussion over the bill at the respective committee of the House of Representatives.    
The CAAN shared that problems have surfaced in carrying out essential works due to the padlocking of the office of the Director General of CAAN.    
Two bills – Nepal Air Service Authority Bill-2076 and 'Nepal Civil Aviation Authority Bill-2076 – were tabled at the Federal Parliament recently in line with the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO)’s recommendation to split CAAN into an air service provider and a regulatory body . The National Assembly passed both the bills on August 2 and sent them to the House of Representatives for further action.    
According to RSS, the employees' unions have been launching protest programmes since August 9 against the decision. Similarly, the employees have also padlocked the secretariat of the Director General from August 12.