Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Bishnu Prasad Paudel has claimed that Gautam Budh International Airport will be operating at full capacity soon. Finance Minister Poudel speaking as the keynote speaker at the interaction program on 'Potential of Lumbini' organized by Kantipur Media Group in Bhairahawa on Wednesday said that there are important decisions to make the airport fully operational in the near future.

"In the beginning, there was a dispute as to why the Gautam Buddha International Airport is needed. Even when it was being built, it was said that it could not be completed. We completed it and now it has become a full capacity international airport," he said, "Now the airport cannot be fully operational again, it is said that the investment has been wasted." But this is not true . Now we will show it by operating at full capacity soon.' 

The current terminal of the airport is small, we will convert it into an internal terminal and make another terminal for international flights . He claimed that if that happens, this airport will be Nepal's largest and only international airport with sufficient infrastructure for international flights.  

"Now the question of whether the airport will work or not is old, this question always comes up when a new airport is put into operation, it happened here as well," he said, "Since the airport was built not only to build, but to operate, it will soon operate in full swing." We have held several meetings between the relevant stakeholders and agencies at the center to see how the airport can be operated at its full capacity. Important decisions have been made in those meetings. He said that some of the decisions have been implemented and some are in the process of implementation.