There was no proposal under consideration for development of new airport near Rawat, a Planning Commission official said Tuesday.
He said that recently an impression was being given by some people that work on New Benazir Bhutto International Airport was being stopped to build another airport near Rawat which was incorrect. He said that the NewBenazirBhuttoInternationalAirport would be completed by 2016 as its work was going smoothly.
The official said according to the original PC-I, the estimated cost of the project was Rs 37 billion. However, the cost had been revised to Rs 94 billion as the project was re-designed as initially it had a small runway.
There were so many reasons of delay, including cost of additional acquisition of land for the second runway, increase in the price of dollar, price escalation due to prolongation in execution tenure of the project and increase in costs of consultancy services, he added.
The official said that the project which was planned in the year 2004 would be completed by 2016. As the site of the new airport did not have water, it was planned to bring a water pipeline from Shahpur Dam but now it has been decided to build a water reservoir which would increase the project cost.
