– BHAIRAHAWA
The contractor of Gautam Buddha International Airport (GBIA), a national pride project is hiring more workers to speed up construction works.
The construction of the airport has lagged behind with various reasons. The contractor company, Northwest Civil Aviation Airport Construction of China, has sought permission to hire an additional 250 Chinese expert workers to speed up construction, according to chief of the project, Om Sharma.
All the necessary documentations work and application for VISA procedure to 250 new expert workers from China have already been dispatched and recommended, stated Sharma. Additionally, half of the expert will arrive before rainy season and remaining after the season,he added.
According to Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN), around 150 workers are working at the construction site at present. The number of workers was 200 earlier, officials of CAAN said.
With the addition of workers, Sharma said that he was hopeful that the project will be completed within September 2019. Construction work of the national pride project was commenced on June 15, 2015, setting project completion deadline of December 2017. However, the project is way behind its work schedule.
The airport construction was slow paced and halted after the contractor group from China and sub-contractor group from Nepal had dispute initially. Later the Chinese contractor group changed the management and started working. After the change, more than 35% work has already been concluded.
By May/June, he said that all the work will be done except for the construction of main structure of the airport like completion of the international terminal building and blacktopping of the runway. He said that the construction of runway, international terminal building, rescue and firefighting, control tower, administrative buildings, overhead tank etc. are being done at high speed.
The construction was due to complete by the end of 2017 however it couldn’t complete due to Madhes movement, blockade, earthquake etc. and the construction company had requested to extend the deadline which is September 2019 as per the latest information.
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