Kathmandu, June 21

The Chinese contractor company, Northwest Civil Aviation Airport Construction Company has sought an extension to the completion deadline of Gautam Buddha International Airport (GBIA) by six months.

As per GBIA Project Chief Prabesh Adhikari, the second phase of the construction ‘ICB 02’ is still to begin, which is why the contractor has asked for deadline extension. “Currently we are in the final phase of ICB 01 and the work of ICB 02 will begin only after completion of this phase,” Adhikari said.

The project has been divided into two phases — ICB 01 that includes infrastructural work and ICB 02 that includes installing the equipment.

As per Adhikari it will take at least six months to complete the work of ICB 02. “The process of selecting the company to purchase equipment for communication navigation and surveillance system has already begun,” he said, adding, “Thus, we have proposed to extend the deadline.”

Towards ICB 01, installation of lights and marking on the runway, taxiway and apron remain to be completed.

“We submitted the proposal for deadline extension to the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal around two weeks ago and we are also awaiting a response from Asian Development Bank,” Adhikari added.

This is the third time that the completion deadline of GBIA is being extended.

The upgradation of GBIA was started in January 2015, targeting to complete it by December 2017. However, conflict between contractors, Tarai-Madhesh movement after earthquake of 2015 and lack of construction materials were cited as some of the reasons hindering construction of GBIA. Consequently, the completion deadline was extended to June 15, 2018.

“Although the progress was satisfying last year, we also had to clear the work backlogs and were therefore unable to meet the targeted deadline,” he said. “So, the deadline was extended to June 28 this year.”

Adhikari claimed that work progress of GBIA is better compared to the past days.

Although the completion deadline will be extended, the investment amount will be the same — Rs seven billion. GBIA is expected to play a major role in making the Visit Nepal 2020 campaign a success.