KATHMANDU: Ministry of Forests and Environment has taken stance to ensure construction of proposed Nijgadh International Airport before cutting down 2.4 trees of 7,969 hectares of forest land.
A total of 8,045.79 hectares of land located at Kohalbi Municipality-8 of Bara and Jitpur Simara Sub-Metropolitan City-1 has been proposed for the Nijgadh International Airport. The remaining portion of land falls in human settlements. The EIA of the airport construction was approved on May 24.
The Ministry has sought guarantee to build the airport even though the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation submitted work plan of cutting down 770,000 trees in two phases to the Forest Ministry, over 45 days ago.
When the Forest Ministry sought advice from the Department of Forest and the department returned the file about a month ago, saying to do as per laws. Though the cutting down trees must be approved from the cabinet, Ministry of forest is yet to forward the file to the cabinet.
A high ranking official at the ministry said, “It has been said that the airport will be developed. But the modality of construction has not been finalized yet. The work for Detailed Project report (DPR) is yet to begin. In such a situation, cutting down trees seems will be premature.”
After the Forest Ministry did not precede file to cut down trees, Tourism and Civil Aviation Minister Rabindra Adhikari visited Forest Minister Shakti Bahadur Basnet on Monday. The talks were held about cutting sown the trees for the airport construction, according to Daya Nidhi Bhatta, press coordinator to Minister Basnet.
Buddhi Sagar Lamichhane, joint-secretary at the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, said that the process to cut down trees at the core area of airport has been forwarded.
Despite revelation of news about public-private partnership modality to construct the airport, Lamichhane said, “The final decision is yet to be taken. The government has proposed EPCAF (Engineering, Purchase, Construction and Fiscal Management) concept along with public-private partnership modality.”
Addressing the parliament on May 24, Minister Adhikari said that the modality of airport construction would be prepared within two weeks.
Nepal Civil Aviation Authority assigned the Nepal Army a year ago to cut down trees and develop Ring Road at the airport area. The Nepal Army will complete all the works within two years. The government allocated Rs 1.5 billion for alone this year.
According to the EIA Report, a total of 2.4 million trees including 585,499 big trees and 1.86 million pole-sized trees will be felled down for the airport construction. In order to compensate the loss, 61.2 million saplings will be planted at the land of 38,294 hectares of land.
However, the forest ministry had sought guarantee to construct the airport at a time when there is not enough land available in Bara to plant saplings, the government official said.
“It does not mean that airport should not be constructed but there must be guarantee after cutting down the trees in the elephant corridor,” he added.
According to Forest Division Office, Bara, tree stamping for felling is yet to be done. “It needs separate work plan for plantation and the project will bear cost of plantation,” Lamichhane claimed.
Out of total airport area of 8,045.79 hectares, the infrastructures of the airport will be built at 1,900 hectares. The construction cost of airport is estimated at US$ 6,560 million, according to the EIA Report.
