At the Tourism Ministry, a dilemma is again brewing—to build or not to build.

It concerns an airport in Dharan planned sometime in 2003 but that is yet to take off. On Thursday, it drew the attention of many when Tourism Minister Sudan Kirati ordered the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal to do a preliminary study of the airport project.

“As far as I remember, this is the fifth or sixth study proposed so far,” said a top official at the Tourism Ministry. “This time, the airport construction agenda has been revived at the behest of Mayor Harka Sampang of Dharan sub-metropolitan city.”

A three-member committee was instantly formed by the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal under engineer Nal Bikram Thapa to conduct the proposed airport’s preliminary study.

“That will be a waste of tax money. It’s a policy corruption to build an airport when you already have another one an hour’s drive away,” said the official, who wished not to be named.

He hinted there was something fishy about the deal.

Jagannath Niroula, spokesman for the civil aviation body, said a committee was formed at the instruction of Minister Kirati. “The committee will submit the report and accordingly, the civil aviation body will decide whether to build the airport.”

In 2003, an airport that would accommodate 17-seater Twin Otter-type aircraft was planned in Dandaghopa of Dharan.

Yeti Airlines purchased the land in 2004. The airline company, now Yeti Group, had bought 7 bigha and 18 kattha [5.34 hectares] of land then. Some locals even donated their land hoping that the airport would be built.

At that time land prices ranged from Rs28,000 per kattha to Rs40,000 per kattha [1 kattha in Nepal is 3645 sq ft].

Additionally, the Dharan municipality had also given an extra 7 bigha [4.74 hectares] of land for the airport project.

However, the work did not move ahead as the civil aviation law does not permit a private company, Yeti Group in this case, to build an airport.

Now, insiders say that the land prices have increased manifold, reaching over Rs5 million per kattha. The value of the airport land has reached almost Rs1 billion, according to sources privy to the matter.

Locals are now pressuring Yeti Group to either build the airport or return their lands at the 2004 prices.

“If the government decides to construct the airport, it has to procure the land at the current market rate from the Yeti Group,” multiple sources told the Post.

“Politicians are pushing for the project, but officials at the tourism ministry and civil aviation authority view the deal as a trap that may attract the anti-graft body’s interest if they move ahead to build the project.”

Since then, every government has been trying to take the project ahead.

Nepal has a longstanding record of building airports under political pressure.

“We have been saying that the construction of an airport in Dharan would be a misuse of the tax money,” said Sanjiv Gautam, former director general of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal.

Former Tourism Minister Jitendra Narayan Dev even tried to sack Gautam in 2017 when the latter refused to allocate a budget to build the airport.

“There is already a bigger airport in Biratnagar. The distance between Dharan and Biratnagar is an hour's drive and there is a six-lane highway connecting these two eastern cities,” said Gautam. “There should be a valid reason behind why Dharan needs an airport.”

According to an official at the civil aviation body, constructing a small airport with basic facilities would require at least Rs300 million, while an airport with a concrete or blacktopped runway costs Rs500 million.

Moreover, it costs Rs5 million annually to operate a small airport, and it has to be repaired regularly.

Although Nepal’s rules do not allow random construction of airports, politicians appear hell-bent on implementing the project, insiders say.

Under the existing Civil Aviation Policy 2006, a new airport should not be constructed if there is another airport nearby.

In the hilly region, airports should be at least 20 nautical miles from one another.

And in the Tarai, the minimum aerial distance between airports has been fixed at 40 nautical miles.

Among many studies undertaken to build the airport in Dharan, one was conducted in 2017 by Realpath Engineering Consultancy.

The study had proposed a 1,250-meter runway that would cost an estimated Rs5.7 billion and could accommodate planes like 72-seater ATR 72.

As soon as the civil aviation body posted Tourism Minister Kiranti's decision to conduct the study of Dharan airport on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, the public questioned his motive.

“Some mechanism must be there to file a case against this Waste of taxpayer’s money,” wrote Gopal Sedhain.

“Stupid idea! Airport at a distance of 55 km. The more you spend, the more you become rich only in politics,” posted Madhu Acharya.

In 2016, former tourism secretary Dinesh Kumar Thapaliya had planned to issue strict guidelines for building new airports amid a flurry of new constructions pushed by political party leaders and influential people. But he was subsequently removed from the ministry.

The guidelines never came.

Due to a lack of proper planning and limited aircraft, many hastily-built airports have turned into cow pastures. Among the 50 domestic airports, 32 are in operation while CAAN makes operating profit from only seven.