May 21: The government has decided to move ahead with construction of the proposed Nijgadh International Airport which has been stalled due to court order over the issue of environment and compensation issue. The airport is a national pride project of the government.    
The policies and programmes of the government for the upcoming fiscal year presented by President Ram Chandra Paudel in a joint meeting of the federal parliament on Friday mentions about forwarding the construction process of the Nijgadh airport. The government has prioritized the construction of Nijgadh airport, said the president.    
The government has set a plan to construct the Nijgadh airport in around 1,900 hectares of area. The first-phase of the construction of Nijgadh airport is estimated to cost Rs 120 billion.    
Similarly, the policies and programmes also state that construction of provincial airport would be forwarded after carrying out study. Safety standard would be strictly implemented to make aviation service safe and terminal buildings of domestic and international airports would be upgraded.   

The announcement comes in the wake of two other international airports – Gautam Buddha International Airport (GBIA) and Pokhara Regional International Airport (PRIA) – struggling to get business even a year after the construction in case of GBIA and five months after the inauguration of PRIA.

Critics have been cautioning whether the country needs another international airport which is to be built with massive foreign loans at a time when the country’s economy is in crisis.