Government to award project contract to Chinese company
Kathmandu, January 2
The government is about to hand over the contract to construct a parallel taxiway and expand the international apron at the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) to a Chinese contractor. Construction of the taxiway and expansion of the international apron are considered the most difficult tasks among all works related to the upgradation of the TIA.
The Air Transport Capacity Enhancement Project’s office under the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) issued a notice on Wednesday seeking claims and complaints against the contractor company if there are any. CAAN is preparing to ink an agreement worth Rs 6.93 billion for the aforementioned works with the Chinese contractor named China National Aero Technology International Engineering Corporation.
In December 2012, Spanish contractor Sanjose and CAAN had signed a contract for the TIA Modernisation Project, now known as Air Transport Capacity Enhancement Project (ATCEP), with the completion deadline set for March 2016.
But Sanjose had failed to complete the project on time and it was able to achieve only 17 per cent of work in four years. Thereafter, CAAN revoked the Spanish firm’s contract by officially issuing a ‘notice of termination’ on December 9, 2016 for delays in the upgradation work.
Murahari Bhandari, project head of ATCEP, said the project has already been delayed for a lengthy period of time and works related to the upgradation need to be now hastened.
“We will soon ink the agreement with the contractor and construction works will be completed within the new stipulated time, which will be announced after the pact is signed.”
Earlier, the same Chinese contractor company had completed the upgradation of the existing taxiway at TIA five months before the set deadline.
Under the second phase of TIA rehabilitation work, the maintenance of the taxiway had been completed and handed over to CAAN on December 15.
Previously, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) was involved in upgrading the airport. But the bank withdrew its support from the project about a year ago. However, CAAN has decided to take up the work of upgrading TIA through its own resources.
