National Pride Project Gautam Buddha International Airport (GBIA) Project will be operated with government-to-government (G2G) model. Government has stated to operate the airport in G2G model.
The government has given the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation (MoCTCA) the approval to operate airport in G2G model so as to ensure the airports operation to be sustainable. MoCTCA is set to operate the airport by collaborating with Government Company now.
Government spokesperson as well as Minister for Communications and Information Technology Gokul Prasad Baskota stated about government decision after cabinet meeting to operate GBIA in G2G modality to run the second international airport in an organized way.
Government has also requested MoCTCA to call for tender from global bidder to operate the airport.
The airport has achieved around 73-74% of progress and is nearing completion and is expected to come into operation within this year however, the modality to operate the airport has not been fixed.
Previously, concept to public-private-partnership modality was also put forwarded as well as Civil Aviation Authority (CAAN) had also expressed interest to operate the airport. Now GBIA will be operated in G2G modality.
Budget of around NRs. 3.34 billion has been allocated to complete the remaining work of the airport.
The construction of 3000 meter long runway of the airport has also completed already and domestic flights operating from different part of the country has started making emergency stop at the newly constructed runway of the airport. India has also agreed to offer the required air routes for GBIA to come in operation.
The works of taxiway and parking bays are also in final level out of 4 and the work is set to be initiated as the work of runway has completed.
Works of Terminal building, control tower, water reservoir and other infrastructure has been going on accordingly.
According to the criteria of the International Civil Aviation Organization, this airport is the ‘Four E’ level airport. This airport is being constructed with a target of providing services to 6 million passengers per year.
The airport will be the country’s second international airport and is expected to minimize the traffic congestion of TIA. The runway of the airport is 3,000 meters long and 45 meter wide and is set to have CAT I standard Instrument Landing System (ILS).
The government has been prioritizing on the airport and has been working on its completion in order to aid in ‘Tourism year-2020’ to bring around 2 million tourist in the country.
