The government’s failure to repair the Tribhuvan International Airport runway could cost the country’s election plans dear, with the Election Commission growing wary of a possible delay in importing around 500 tonnes of ballot-printing paper.
After the recent monsoon-induced damages in the runway, the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal has requested international airlines to restrict their load to 196 tonnes until September 30, when the whether gets drier.
According to experts at the TIA , the runway of the country’s only international airport develops cracks as it becomes soggy during the monsoons.
As a result, cargo planes loaded with 485 tonnes of the printing paper purchased by the UNDP and that were scheduled to land at the airport in the next two weeks are likely to not arrive in time.
Though CAAN officials have not ruled out possibilities of relaxing such a load ceiling for special flights, there has been no agreement to transport the ballot printing papers so far.
'We have communicated the load ceiling decision to the concerned authority,' General Manager at the TIA Dinesh Shrestha said.
The other alternatives, according to officials, are to double the number of flights for the consignment or import the paper via land. While the supplier plans to use five cargo planes, CAAN officials have suggested they use at least 10 under these circumstances. EC officials, however, fear that poll-opposing forces in the country could block the supply of the paper if brought via the land route.
EC officials said the election schedule could be adversely affected if the papers fail to arrive on time, as, according to them, formulating a ‘plan B’ would take a very long time.
“We are still hopeful that there is a way out to have the papers here as scheduled. Should that fail, the supplier will have to go for alternatives,” said Chief Election Commissioner Neel Kantha Uprety.
As part of its commitment to support Nepal’s elections, the UNDP, on behalf of all donors, has already purchased the paper from a Dubai-based company, which has its outlets in New Delhi, Copenhagen and Cape Town.
Sources said that if the TIA allows landing of fully-loaded cargo planes, it would take at least five aircraft to transport the paper to Kathmandu from the vendor’s nearest outlet in New Delhi.
However, CAAN officials also said that though they have issued a circular restricting wide-body aircraft over 196 tones, the restriction could be relaxed for special purposes.
A loaded Boeing 747-8 cargo aircraft weighs 448 tonnes at take off and that weight goes beyond the TIA limit if each of the five aircraft share the 485 tonnes of the paper along with other heavy printing machines and accessories.
After the papers arrive, the EC plans to print over 3 million ballot papers within a month. As per the laws, the EC must supply the ballot papers to all polling stations one month ahead of the election.
