Ministry of Finance has allocated NRs 700 Million to the contractor Ministry of Finance has allocated NRs 700 Million to the contractor company after the construction work of Gautam Buddha International Airport (GBIA) project was halted following lack of budget.
Finance Ministry provided the budget after the estimated budget of Asian Development Bank (ADB) was closed.
According to the source, Tourism Ministry sent an application to ADB yesterday after the Finance Ministry provided the estimated amount.
The amount will dispatched in the name of Construction Company after ADB receives letter from Ministry and the construction company will resume the work after receiving the payment.
The construction work of the runway and parking bay in front of terminal building were halted from Sunday.
China’s Northwest Construction Company stopped construction work saying that the company has not received the payment of previously completed work.
The project department sent the receipt to the National Pride Project Office under the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal in mid-April and the files were submitted to the ministry on April 19. Though the ministry was supposed to forward the details to ADB, the files have been stuck at the ministry and the project has not received any amount for the last one month.
According to the source of the Ministry, there was delay in the withdrawal of the money as the amount was spent without studying the budget. At the same time, the project faced problem in fetching construction materials.
Nearly 300 workers are engaged in the project and are paid on a daily basis. So, the contractor had to halt the construction work after failing to receive payment on time.
Prabesh Adhikari, Project Manager stated that the contractor is engaged on blacktopping the runway whereas other main works have already been completed.
CAAN will initiate the second phase of the project which involves installing the equipment (ICB 02), after the infrastructural work (ICB 01) completes, he added.
Currently, the blacktopping of the runway has reached last stage. The construction work has been stopped while only 500 meters of the runway is remaining to be blacktopped.
The problem was created with delay by the Finance Ministry in providing approval for additional budget as the construction company finished the allocated budget earlier than the estimated time duration.
