Pokhara International Airport, built at a cost of Rs 22 billion, deserted, challenges officials to confirm irregularities (Video)

Kathmandu. Director General of Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN), Pradeep Adhikari, has said that there was no compromise on the quality of the construction of Pokhara International Airport.

At Pokhara Airport, Adhikari said that apart from the agreement for the construction of the airport, two boarding bridges have been added to the airport and the runway and taxiway have been constructed using 34 cm thick concrete keeping in mind the geography of Pokhara. Pokhara Airport, which has been upgraded to international standard due to the quality and geographical location of the airport, is currently limited to domestic flights.

So far, there have been no regular international flights except charter flights. Pokhareli’s dream of promoting pokhara’s tourism sector through international flights has been reduced to a dream. The construction of the international airport has been completed after repeated agitations and pressure from the Pokharel people, but it has not come into operation as expected.

A total of 3,106 ropanis of land was acquired in 2032 BS for the construction of the airport. After this, an additional 793 ropanis of land was acquired in 2072 BS and Rs 4.5 billion was spent on the distribution of compensation for the airport built on 3,899 ropanis of land.

On March 11, 2068, the Ministry of Finance had given approval to the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) to proceed with the construction of the airport. After this, an agreement was signed between THEA and Chinese construction company CAMC to build the ‘ICAO 4D category’ airport at rs 22 billion at an interest rate of 2 percent on May 28, 2019.

Other companies could not come because the Chinese government had given concessional loans through Exim Bank and only Chinese construction companies could participate in the competition. After the Cabinet directed the Ministry of Finance to make arrangements for the construction of the airport with chinese concessional loan in November 2018, an agreement was signed between the governments of Nepal and China (in the G2G model) on March 20, 2019.

Although the airport, built with expensive loan assistance, is attractive to see, it has not been decided when regular international flights will take place.

Photo: Nepal Photo Library.