Work on upgrading Gautam Buddha airport in Bhairahawa into a regional international airport is likely to begin from June-end.

Murari Bhandari, chief of the airport upgradation project under the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (Caan), said they have reviewed technical documents submitted by the bidders, and have submitted the documents to the Tourism Ministry.

Five Chinese and two Spanish joint-venture construction firms were short-listed for the $90.6 million project on February 26.

The ministry will forward the documents to Asian Development Bank (ADB)—the major funding agency for the project—which will further assess them.

“After necessary evaluation by ADB, we will open financial documents of the short-listed firms,” Bhandari said.

“We are expecting all the processes will be completed by mid-June and the construction work will begin by June-end.”

He said as the ADB has kept the project on its priority list, it should not take a long time to reassess the technical documents.

The government has expected the airport will come into operation by 2017 and will serve as an alternative to Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport, already strained due to heavy traffic.

The planned airport, with a 3,000-m runway, will be able to handle 600,000 passengers annually after the competition of the first phase of upgradation. In the second phase (after 10 years), it will handle up to 2 million passengers, and finally, the airport will be able to process up to 6 million passengers annually when it is complete.

The project plans restructuring the existing 1,500-m runway for use as a parallel taxiway, constructing a new 15,169 sq m terminal building, improving drainage and installing more advanced navigational aids, equipment and airport lighting for safety.

A Cabinet meeting on Friday accepted an additional Rs 2.9 billion ($30 million)

aid from ADB for the airport project.

A $99.5-million project has been devised to build the airport in Bhairahawa and infrastructure in Lumbini. The airport component of the project has been valued at $90.6 million. The project will be financed by a loan and grant aid of $42.96 million and $12.75 million, respectively, from ADB under the South Asia Tourism Infrastructure Development Project.

The OPEC Fund for International Development, as a co-financing arm of the ADB, is providing $15 million in loan. The Nepal government and Caan will contribute $29.17 million.