Kathmandu, March 31

It has already been 24 years since the government came up with a plan to build the Nijgadh International Airport (NIA) as an international hub like the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi.

There is a plan to develop the hub as an air transit for 22 neighbouring countries with around 15 million air passengers. The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) claims that the project can be completed in five years but almost two-and-a-half decades have gone by and the project is still struggling to complete even preliminary works.

According to the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation’s oneyear work review there has been good progress in works of the NIA.

Meanwhile, CAAN — the aviation regulatory body of the country — has said that they are now waiting for the construction modality of the airport.

“We are almost at the end of our preparatory work for the airport and now the project is waiting for the construction modality,” said Pradip Adhikari, chief of National Pride Projects at CAAN.

According to Adhikari, the work of demarcation of land and fencing walls has been completed till date.

As stated by CAAN, there is around 11,879.72 bighas of land covering the airport construction area of which 110 bighas of land belongs to the public. While the ownership of 65 bighas of private land has already been transferred to CAAN, distribution of compensation to the other land owners is in the final phase now.

However, there has been no new progress in recent days at Nijgadh International Airport.

Since the project is awaiting the construction model it has failed to speed up its construction.

“Frequent high-level discussions over the construction model are ongoing at the moment,”

Adhikari said, “We will start working on the construction site soon after we get the construction modality for the airport.” CAAN has also started working on the master plan for the project, he added.

Adhikari further said that there has been debate going on among stakeholders on whether to build the airport as per the build, own, operate, transfer (BOOT) model or on its own.

“Some experts are suggesting to opt for the BOOT model while others want the project to construct the airport through its own resources. Thus, we are looking for the best way out to build NIA,” he added.

Prior to this, late tourism minister Rabindra Adhikari had said that the project will be developed through G2G process if any country shows interest in it otherwise the Nepal government would build it on its own.

NIA has always been considered as a highly prioritised project of the government. Although the government has been claiming that it is working aggressively on this national pride project, the work progress is still tepid.

Moreover, it has witnessed a lot of hurdles from the very beginning till date.