Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) has blamed the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) for the delay in relocating its aviation fuel depot from Sinamangal, saying CAAN has not handed over the land required for the new depot site.
The current depot at the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) is located near a densely populated area, raising safety concerns. In response, the government had decided over a year ago to shift the facility to a safer location to the northern side of the airport as part of a long-term airport expansion and safety plan.
However, NOC has alleged that the relocation process stalled because CAAN failed to provide clear demarcation and ownership transfer of the proposed land in Gauchar, where 60 ropanis of land within the Nepali Army’s golf course area had been allocated, the state-run news agency RSS reported.
“At every stage, we urged CAAN to demarcate the land and finalize an agreement for land handover, but no substantial progress was made except the removal of a mound in the past eight months,” RSS quoted Pradip Kumar Yadav, chief of NOC’s Sinamangal depot, as saying during a press conference on Sunday.
He added that NOC could not proceed with the construction due to the lack of site clearance, unclear land boundaries, and pending removal of existing structures.
Yadav also expressed concern that necessary steps like logging approximately 200 trees and leveling the ground in the new location are yet to be completed. However, site engineer Man Bahadur Singh informed that ground-leveling work is nearly finished, RSS added.
In response to a query from RSS, Hansa Raj Pande, Director General at TIA, said the process of land transfer is underway. “A proposal to write off the land tax has been submitted to the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation. Once approved, it will facilitate the land ownership transfer,” he said.
According to RSS, the Sinamangal depot has the capacity to store 7,660 kilolitres of aviation fuel and currently supplies about 400 kilolitres daily. The depot includes eight storage tanks operated by NOC, which is the country’s sole distributor of petroleum products.
