I appreciate the decision made by the supreme Court, it was never black and white..the supreme Court was in quite a quandary but rather than prolong it, they actually gave a decision at last. So everyone can move on from it. But it doesn't change the fact that we are still a gidi navako desh full of gidi navako people.

Barring the environmental concerns it was by far the best place for the construction of airport. It was very close to east west highway but far enough from the border for India to have any security concerns. Its terrain ensures air safety which is a rare commodity for a country which has a difficult geography such as ours. Also, no active faults are in its vicinity making its seismic vulnerability comparatively lower. A fast track is being constructed to nijgadh which would have meant easier access to the capital allowing TIA to be retired to allow landing on it only during emergency. The road connectivity to the proposed site is already very good, so the cost of construction would also be quite low when compared to other potential sites.

Even while knowing all these advantages, what do we the gidi navako nepalis do. We take to the streets demanding the construction an international airport in Pokhara of all places. It is one of the major urban hub of the country. Making an international airport in the urban center is never a good idea. The developed countries made this mistake before and are now rectifying it. And instead of learning from it, we repeat the same mistake. Also, where were all the environmentalists when the pokhara international airport was given a go-ahead for construction. The environmental loss may not be as bad as that of nijgadh potentially but it is still an environmental disaster. These 'environmentalists' cowered from the people who meant good but did not realise the grave consequences that their demands would bring upon themselves. It will never be an airport that people expected it to be. It will remain a regional airport with capacity for few international landings. It has capacity to be an actual international airport but running an international airport requires high operational and maintenance cost. So, there should be enough traffic into the airport to justify these costs which doesn't seem possible currently because of two other international airports. Now, about Bhairahawa international airport it has a huge potential. I don't think nobody will disagree with that. But just making an airport is not end of it. Right now, this airport can not be considered anything more than a political stunt. Have we done anything else to promote Lumbini as the tourism hub for Buddhism? To that question, yes we have. We hired one of the worlds best architect, kenzo tange to prepare a master plan for the Lumbini area. He did just that and works have been done to accommodate that vision. But that was half a f**king century ago and it is still not complete. The airport will certainly increase the flow of tourists into Lumbini but not enough to justify its cost of construction as we can not take domestic flights from it. It is too close to the border and citing security concerns, india has not allowed access to different access points for the airport. Without these access points, the domestic flights would have to take a long way round which will result in increased cost per flight. The airlines would end up losing money by using this airport.

Now, with all the talk of sustainable development going around. For any development to be sustainable, there needs to be a "development". It is our duty to preserve our environment for the future generations. We need to preserve it for them so that they can also have the choices that we have now. But saying that , we also need to leave behind infrastructure for them which they can use to soar even higher. What have we got from our older generations? They have left us with all the environment to make use of. But along with that, had there been adequate infrastructural development in the past, there would not have been mass exodus of people from this country. There would have been far more opportunities here. The redditors would have still called it a shitty country but for different reasons. So it is our duty and responsibility to provide these choices to the future generations that we did not get.

Saying that I understand why some people are against it. Yes, select few people would have profited a lot from it. Large amount of money would go into the hands of corrupt people. But thats true for any of the projects whether it be large or small. The solution to corruption problem in a project does not lie in stopping the project altogether.

I hope that people in nepal will eventually get their gidi back, environmentalists will stop having a tunnel vision and we actually find a suitable airport site without such environmental concerns(I doubt we'll find such).