August 4: The construction of dry port and international exhibition center at Chovar, Kathmandu has still not gathered pace. The government had decided to construct a dry port and international standard exhibition center on the premises of Himal Cement Company which has remained out of operation since a long time.

Insufficient paper works has caused the delay in moving the construction process forward, informed Nepal Intermodel Transport Development Board (NITDB) under the Ministry of Commerce.

The board had handed the responsibility of survey, preparing the design, and finalizing documents for the construction of the dry port to Full Bright Consultancy. According to Laxman Babu Basnet, executive director of the board, the consultancy was given to prepare master plan for the construction of the international standard exhibition center.

Basnet informed that the deadline given to the consultancy expired in May last year. However, the World Bank (WB) found many issues missing in the survey report and has asked to submit it again after fulfilling all the criteria. The consultancy has aimed at completing all the tasks by mid-August.

The dry port will be constructed with Rs 1.2 billion loan from the WB. However, sources say that the estimated amount much more that the actual requirement. Basnet said that the investment for the construction of international level exhibition center has yet not been decided. He made it clear that an agreement will be made in the coming days with the WB in this regard.

Meanwhile, the ministry said that the process for the construction of the dry port had started in 2010 but was delayed as the consultancy was not able to finish the survey on time.

The government had decided to construct the exhibition center while announcing the budget of FY 2013/14, stating that the current exhibition center at Bhrikutimandap lacked enough space.

At that time, Himal Cement had not paid its remaining loan of Rs 20.5 million and the Nepal Industrial Development Corporation (NIDC) did not release the land for other purpose. The survey and detailed project report (DPR) works started after the payment of the loan.

 “It took two years to bring the land ownership under the government from Himal Cement,” Basnet said adding, “The DPR work had started after the transfer of ownership of land.”