ISLAMABAD: Owing to the incompetence of the National Highway Authority (NHA) and the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to prepare work strategy, the inauguration of the New Islamabad International Airport could face further delay, Pakistan Today learnt reliably.
A senior official asking anonymity told this scribe that NHA has given the deadline of March 2018 to complete the construction work, but it seems next to impossible for the government to inaugurate the long-delayed airport in March.
The official said that the government was not focusing on the project, as the ruling party was still busy in defending its leadership including former prime minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif and other high dignitaries. Besides political wrangling, the official said that heavy rains during the months of July and August caused delay in the construction of road network at the new airport.
Due to the poor road planning by NHA, the inauguration of the airport is unlikely to meet the fourth deadline – March 2018. Earlier, the former prime minister had set a deadline to inaugurate the new airport on August 14, 2017, which was later revised to December 2017, but the flawed planning of NHA led delay the project once again.
The two dams naming Rama and Kassana are also being constructed for the storage of water for the airport use. The Rama Dam is at its final stage and works for the other dam is underway. Previously, Adviser to PM Sardar Mehtab Ahmed Khan in a meeting with D-8 countries said that the new airport would be operational soon in the first quarter of 2018.
Talking to Pakistan Today, NHA spokesperson Kashif Zaman said that both the access roads for the airport via Talian Interchange and GT Road Interchange would be opened in January 2018. The portion from Peshawar Mor up to GT Road Interchange including the stations will be opened in March 2018, he said.