By Anil Giri
Kathmandu, Feb 27 (IANS): Five Chinese and two Spanish joint venture (JV) firms are vying for a $1 billion contract for upgrading the Gautam Buddha Airport at Bhairahawa near Lord Buddha's birthplace Lumbini, close to the India-Nepal border.

The five Chinese firms - Sino Hydro Corporation, North-West Civil Aviation Building Company, China Harbour Engineering, China Overseas Engineering Group and China Volant Company - and the two Spanish JVs - Sanjose and Kalika, and Isoluf Carson and Carvian - are in the fray to win the project, which aims to bring millions of Buddhist tourists to Lumbini within a decade.

The unique geo-political positioning of Nepal between India and China, the growing Chinese influence in the Himalatan nation's various infrastructure-related projects like telecom, road and rail links and hydro-power project and the construction of the airport at Bhairahawa and another in Pokahara, a major tourist hub in Nepal, are coming under growing scrutiny of the Indian establishment and the West.

Of the 37 firms that obtained the bid documents, only seven submitted their bids, which opened here late Wednesday.

The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) CAAN had invited bids Nov 28, 2013, for the construction of airside and landside infrastructure and other facilities at Gautam Buddha Airport, but had twice extended the deadline.

The civil works include construction of a new runway, exit and parallel taxiway with flexible pavements, a new apron with rigid pavements for parking aircraft, converting the existing runway to a parallel taxiway, and diversion of a small river and airport boundary, among others.

The planned airport, with a 3,000-metre runway, will be able to handle 600,000 passengers annually after the competition of the first phase of the upgrade.

In the second phase, scheduled for after 10 years, it will handle up to two million passengers, and eventually is expected to process up to six million passengers.

"After evaluating the technical documents of the bidders, we will open the financial documents of those who are eligible according to our parameters," said Murari Bhandari, chief of the project.

"We will complete the process at the earliest," he added.

The airport is termed one of the most viable projects due its potential to draw a large number of Buddhist pilgrims to the birthplace of Gautam Buddha.

It will also serve as an alternative to Kathmandu's Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA), already under strain due to heavy traffic.

Due to the lack of a secondary airport in Nepal, a large number of international flights are compelled to circle the sky or be diverted to Kolkata and Lucknow of India, and Dhaka of Bangladesh, among other airports, when problems arise at TIA.

The Asian Development Bank, the Nepal government and OPEC Fund for International Development will fund the project.