Chinese construction company Shanxi Construction Engineering Group who succeeded to grab the bid to undertake the infrastructure improvement works of Tribhuvan International Airport has signed the contract for undertaking the project yesterday.
Similarly, Nepali joint venture Construction Company Sharma Prera and Ashish Construction who were awarded the contract to work on the terminal building works of TIA too have signed the memorandum of understanding with CAAN (Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal).
Chinese company Shanxi Construction Engineering Group owns the tender for NCB-01 which includes the extension work of the runway by 300 meters at the southern end, construction of a drainage system along with perimeter and access roads.
Likewise, Nepali joint venture Construction Company Sharma Prera and Ashish Construction will be working on NCB-02 which includes the construction of international airport terminal.
Completion of NCB-01 tender has been allocated 21 months duration and NCB-02 needs to be accomplished by 18 months from the project commencement date.
Both the tender work has been scheduled to be proceeded by coming one-month duration reported Ram Babu Poudyal, Chief of TIA enhancement project.
Meanwhile, bids for NCB-03 which includes construction sewage channel and power back up for TIA has not been finalized and is expected to take additional one month of duration for contractor selection.
Poudyal reported that companies have drafted their bid; we will finalize the quotations and appoint the eligible contractors to commence the construction work.
However, bidding for earthwork which includes soil filling works on the northern side(Guheswari temple section)of the airport will cost few months duration due to the difficulty of finding a quarry site and transportation routes, he added.
CAAN and Tourism Ministry jointly have planned to add up 12 parking bays at the northern section of TIA after the completion of soiling job to ease current parking bays at the airport section.
An overall budget of 92 USD millions has been separated for entire enhancement project of TIA. Both the government of Nepal (12 million USD funding) and Asian Development Bank (80 million USD investments on loan) have invested on the project.
Previously, Sanjose and the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal had signed the contract for the project back in December 2012 with the completion deadline set for March 2016. But the Spanish Company was terminated out of the project on 9 December last year due to the slow movement of the construction work.
Thus the multi-million enhancement project was hit back since then. But now both aviation authority and aircraft operators are excited to see the project moving.
TIA after the comp0letion of the enhancement project is likely to suffer less from aircraft congestion and will be capable of landing 5.85 passengers annually.
