New Islamabad International Airport Project

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Abbas Ali
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Post by Abbas Ali »

4 firms get contract for New Islamabad International Airport

CAA directs completion by ’09; irritants between Defence Ministry, P&D Division causing delay


LAHORE:
The Civil Aviation Authority have taken some major steps and regularized award of work to four different firms for Rs 2198 million with the directions to complete the project of New Islamabad International Airport (NIIA) by August 14, 2009. This is notwithstanding the fact that a few irritants exist between Ministry of Defence (MoD) and Planning & Development Division causing delay to complete the project.

As a first major step, the CAA approved PC-1 for site preparation works (phase-I) for the airport project amounting to Rs 1,400 million and regularized the award of work to the lowest successful bidder, M/s Husnain Cotex (Pvt) Ltd and Ikan JV with the direction to complete the job within one year. In addition, the CAA has also signed two agreements with two companies, hiring them as design consultants for Rs 798 million.

An agreement pertaining to design consultancy for the airport infrastructure has been signed with M/s ADPI for Rs 410 million while the other agreement pertaining to design consultancy for passenger terminal building project has been signed with M/s CPG for 388.5 million.

Appointment of the design consultants was one of the major issues raised by the P&D while seeking certain clarifications from the Ministry of Defence for its failure to appoint design consultants even after a lapse of more than one year.

Pursuing this particular issue with the MoD, the P&D division maintained that in the project phasing, normally the design consultant is appointed first and the project management consultants afterwards. But in this case, the project management consultant (M/s Louis Berger) has been selected first and the process for design consultants was not finalized for which the MoD was asked to clarify reasons for adopting reversed course of action.

Though the CAA has finally selected design consultants, yet the points raised by the P&D were not considered by the CAA high-ups as the P&D had asked the MoD to avoid appointing two different consultants since this is something unusual.

It held that any difference of opinion between the two consultants on the technical parameters could create a lot of problems. There should have been a single world class design consultant selected, having expertise on the overall airport design as the project has to be processed through certain high-powered forums including ECNEC given the involvement of foreign funding. However, the CAA has signed two different consultants, one for the Airside Infrastructure (runway) and the other for Landside Infrastructure (terminal building). Moreover, contrary to the procedure adopted earlier to purchase 323 kanals of land at Chak Fattu area for NIIA from the open market through a real estate agent which caused much uproar in the quarters concerned, the CAA has now decided to acquire additional land of of 4144.5 kanals under section 4 of Land Acquisition Act. Further the authorities have been asked to submit official rates to CAA Chairman Farooq Rehmatullah, who would discuss the same with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. The purchase of 323 kanals of land at Chak Fattu area for the project reportedly cost the CAA ten times more simply because the land was purchased from the open market through an agent.

Since this particular issue of acquiring the additional land had already been one of the irritants between the MoD and the P&D division as the P&D declined to allow the MoD to incur Rs 2.6 billion for the purchase of additional land for NIIA without meeting certain conditions. The CAA is preparing a detailed report for the Standing Committee on Defence to clarify the issue.

With the appointment of design consultants, the MoD/CAA would be meeting another criteria since the P&D maintained the actual project /PC-1 duly prepared by the design consultants would be placed before the ECNEC seeking the approval for incurring Rs 2.6 billion for the purchase of additional land for the project, keeping in view PM Aziz’s directive and being a project of national importance.

Source: The News

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PK777
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Post by PK777 »

When does construction begin?!
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Post by Abbas Ali »

According to reliable sources CAA-Pakistan has proposed naming new Islamabad Airport after Liaquat Ali Khan.

Liaquat Ali Khan was Pakistan's first Prime Minister. He was assasinated on October 16, 1951 at a public meeting in Rawalpindi.

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PK777
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Post by PK777 »

I would like them to name it after Jinnah Sister, "Fatima Jinnah International". We need to represent the women too.. 8)

Though, the best suggestion that Nasir will agree with me on, is forget names just name them after their cities.. eg. Islamabad Intl Airport, Lahore Intl Airport - its alot easier!
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Post by Abbas Ali »

Groundbreaking of new Islamabad Airport on April 7

Thursday, 29 March 2007

LAHORE, March 29 (APP):
The new Islamabad Airport will be the most modern and biggest airport of the country having dual runways and designed capacity to meet future requirement of next 100 years.

This was stated by Regional Director (North) Civil Aviation Authority Brig. (retd) Pervez Bashir while addressing a press conference at Allama Iqbal International airport here on Thursday.

He said foundation stone laying ceremony of the airport sprawling over 3700 acres of land would be held on April 07 and it will be located on Tarnol-Fateh Jhang road about 30km off Islamabad.

He said the project will cost about Rs 35 billion and would be built by the Civil Aviation Authority with its own resources on self-finance basis and would be completed in two stages in four years.

He said contract for the first phase involving ground levelling and compaction has already been given and would be completed in about one year at a cost of Rs 1.5 billion.

After the completion of the first phase, the work on the second phase for construction of terminal building and other infrastructure would be started costing about Rs 33 billion.

Source: Associated Press of Pakistan

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PK777
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Post by PK777 »

About time! I hope the new structure is made of glass ans steel!
m2hassan
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Post by m2hassan »

So what r we looking at ? I ve seen a photo of the project from back when it was intially proposed . They originally had only 3 gates and God knows how many parking stands. Any one have a revised and final project plan ?
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Post by Ali Hasan »

m2hassan wrote:So what r we looking at ? I ve seen a photo of the project from back when it was intially proposed . They originally had only 3 gates and God knows how many parking stands. Any one have a revised and final project plan ?
Below is the latest Master Plan that the New Islamabad International Airport website is showing. I'm not sure if this is the final plan or if they are going to make any changes to it.

Link: http://www.niia.com.pk/project_status/p ... i_alps.pdf (PDF File)
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Post by cpt_747 »

The last one (number five) looks more like an International Airport which could handle the traffic for the next 20-30 years but certainly not for 100 years. Lets see what they really come up with..

BTW, whats happening with the SIA (Sialkot Int'l Airport)? When is it opening for business and has any airline(s) (other than PIA, AeroAsia, AirBlue etc...) shown any interest in it?
The orbital speed of the Earth around the Sun averages about 30 km/s or 18 mps (108,000 km/h or 67000 mph).
Which means we're travelling 97 times the speed of sound. And yet we can't feel the motion,
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Post by Abbas Ali »

New Islamabad Airport stone laying ceremony on April 7

LAHORE:
Regional Director (North) Brig (r) Pervaiz Bashir Thursday said that stone laying ceremony of the new Islamabad Airport would be held on April 7, 2007.

Addressing to a press conference at the Allama Iqbal International Airport, he said that Islamabad Airport would be functional in the period of four years and 3500 acres of land out of 3700 acres had already been acquired for the purpose and it is in the possession of CAA. He said the ceremony was postponed in the past as the issues of land acquiring were not solved.

He said that area of 18 kilometer had been fenced so far, adding that distance of the airport from Zero Point would be around 30 km.

Brig (r) Pervaiz Bashir said that name of this airport has not been decided so far however, it is expected that the President or Prime Minister would announce the name soon.

He said that construction work for the building would also be started in June of next year. He said that ground leveling had been started and the total cost of ground leveling would be around Rs 1.5 billion. The contract of this project had been given to an American company which would complete the initial project within eighteen months.

About the runways, he said there would be two runways on both sides of airport building, adding that modern airports of the world had two runways therefore, the CAA decided to follow this rule.

About other facilities, he said that the site would be a new city in plain area, it would be a complete commercial outlet which would have a hotel, its own grid station and residential colonies for CAA employees. He said that the NHA would construct highways near the airport, adding that over 2500 people would get employment after the construction of the airport.

Source: The News
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Post by Abbas Ali »

Brig (r) Pervaiz Bashir said that name of this airport has not been decided so far however, it is expected that the President or Prime Minister would announce the name soon.
According to reliable sources CAA-Pakistan has proposed naming new Islamabad Airport after Liaquat Ali Khan.

Liaquat Ali Khan was Pakistan's first Prime Minister. He was assasinated on October 16, 1951 at a public meeting in Rawalpindi.

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Maddad
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Post by Maddad »

Why not Pervez Musharraf Airport (PMA)
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HokutoNoKen
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Post by HokutoNoKen »

i pray to God that that was a joke :shock:
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Post by hasan saleem »

Country to have first green-field airport: Islamabad to become aviation hub

By Baqir Sajjad Syed

ISLAMABAD, April 4: Islamabad is set to get a spanking new airport that will make an inspiring statement about modern Pakistan ready to become a major regional aviation hub.

Once constructed, its planners say, the airport would be an architectural landmark with its own signature.

The country’s first green-field airport, with its passenger- friendly service facilities will be, according to Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the most modern and the biggest in the country — quite distinct from the cramped and outdated structure that people have so far been using.

The latest technology with which the airport is planned to be equipped would even set it apart from other airports in the country.

The ground-breaking ceremony of the “distinctive icon”, being planned to come up as a aviation hub, would be performed by President Pervez Musharraf on April 7 (Saturday).

The Rs35 billion airport being constructed at Pind Ranjha is expected to be ready for operations by 2011-12. It would replace the overloaded and un-expandable Islamabad International Airport in Chaklala.

Talking to Dawn, CAA Director-General Farooq Rehmatullah said, we are aiming at constructing ‘the best of airports’. “For this we have put together the best possible team comprising top designers and infrastructure developers,” he added.

Explaining the significance of the project, Mr Rehmatullah said: “It is very important and in conformity with our upcoming aviation policy that envisages setting up of a hub for Central Asian states connecting them to the West and Far East.”

Once completed, he said, the airport would provide enormous savings to the airlines.

Almost 3,700 acres have been acquired for the project, 2,000 acres of which have been earmarked for aviation-related activities including two runways, parking bays, control tower, terminal building, aprons, hangars, spaces for airline operations and other allied services.

The remaining land would be used for commercial purposes like car parking, four star hotel, air malls, duty free shops, business centre, food courts, international convention centre, shopping plaza, multi-storied housing projects, cargo village and other ventures.

Mr Rehmatullah, who avoided disclosing the exact details of the project because he had to give a briefing to President Musharraf, said lakes and lagoons were also planned.

The new airport will have a modular design to handle 6.5 million passengers per annum and 100,000 metric tons cargo per annum. It has been designed to meet the needs of the next 100 years.

The site located near Fatehjang is approximately 30kms from Zero Point (Islamabad) and 23kms from Saddar (Rawalpindi). The planners say passengers may take ‘20-25 minutes’ to reach the airport through a network of motorways and highways — something only possible if one is not held up by the massive traffic jams that have become a feature of the twin cities.

The entire financing of the project is being done by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).

CONSTRUCTION: The project comprises two phases and would be completed in four years. Contract for the first phase of 18 months involving ground levelling and compaction has already been given and would be completed at a cost of Rs1.5 billion. The second phase covering the construction of terminal and other infrastructure, would commence in June 2008.

EMPLOYMENT: The project would generate jobs for some 2,500 people.

OUTSTANDING ISSUES: The biggest criticism coming in the way of this project is that it is being undertaken without carrying out the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), a mandatory requirement for all public and private sector projects.

The CAA director-general thinks EIA is not required. “We are not setting up any industry or pouring out effluents and would not be having any impact.”

Secondly, the issue of jurisdiction and inclusion of the site in the federal capital still stands undecided. Project Director Masood Salam says for the time being the site is partly in Attock and Rawalpindi districts.

He said there was no concrete proposal for inclusion of the airport in the federal capital territory except for some informal discussions.

NAME: The name for New Islamabad International Airport has not been finalised as yet. Mr Rehmatullah said it was for the defence ministry to propose a name for the new airport to the government. But, so far, he said, it had not been done according to his knowledge.

He, however, indicated that the name may be derived from the architectural aspects of the airport. The airport’s architecture would be a blend of local and modern architecture of the area. Another proposed name is Liaquat Ali Khan Airport in memory of the country’s first prime minister who was shot dead in Rawalpindi’s Liaquat Bagh.

INCREASE IN COST: Delays in initiation of project resulted in huge increase in its cost. Comparing the cost of the project with the estimates prepared almost a year back showed that it has almost doubled from Rs18 billion to Rs35 billion.

The CAA says these delays were because of problems in taking over the land, most of which had been acquired in the mid and late eighties.

© DAWN Group of Newspapers, 2007
PK777
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Post by PK777 »

I hope the hype is worth it!