By Laxman Poudel

Bhairahawa, May 12: Construction work on Gautam Buddha International Airport (GBIA) has resumed following the supply of river-based construction materials.
In lack of construction materials, the construction works were hampered and the GBIA project was only continuing installation works of equipment.
With the availability of the river-based construction materials in support of local administration, remaining construction works have been resumed, said Prabesh Adhikari, Chief of the GBIA project.
Resumption of construction works has been possible when Butwal Sub-Metropolitan City provided the river-based raw materials, he said.
Butwal Sub-Metropolitan City is providing sand, pebbles and other river-based construction materials for the national pride project from the Tinau River.
Local administration has been coordinating to continue construction works of the national pride project as per the direction of the government.
With the resumption of supply of raw materials, construction of roads in 10-kilometre periphery of the airport and concreting works in between terminal building and apron are going on, said Adhikari.
“The project still requires 50,000 cubic metre river-based raw materials. We are also consulting with other local levels to provide such raw materials,” he said.
Completion deadline of the project, which has completed around 90 per cent works, was March 31.
But the contractor of the project said that it will take more time to complete the project works due to obstruction in supply of some equipment from China after the pandemic of COVID-19.
Lighting fixture of runway, conveyor belt of baggage handling system are yet to be supplied from China.
Adhikari said that the project has to hire Chinese technicians to install the conveyor belt. He said that importing remaining equipment and bringing technicians are main challenges to the project. For this, opening of air route and water or land route is required, he added.
The contract of the project having a total cost of 6.22 billion rupees was given to Chinese company North West Civil Association on 31 December 2014 with the condition of completing it by the end of 2017. But due to the various unpredictable circumstances, the term of the contract has been extended four times.
The project being implemented in loan assistance of Asian Development Bank covers the area of 787 bigah, which is greater than Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu.