ISLAMABAD The government has decided to provide Rs6.18 billion for construction of an international airport in Gwadar, despite an earlier decision that the airport would be built by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) from its own resources.

The total cost of the project is Rs7.5 billion. The government of Oman will provide a grant of $17.5 million.

Under the earlier decision taken at the beginning of the last fiscal year the CAA was to build the airport on the pattern of the Shaheed Benazir Bhutto International Airport in Islamabad.

The PC-1 of the project approved in July 2008 stated that CAA would use its own funds in addition to the Omani grant.

While an amount of Rs750 million was allocated in the development budget of the current fiscal for schemes forwarded by the defence ministry, the Central Development Working Party (CDWP) approved local financing of Rs6.18 billion for the airport.

A senior member of the Planning Commission said the decision had been taken under the government's Balochistan development policy.

The CAA has acquired 4,300 acres. It estimates that the airport will be operational by 2020 and it will be able to handle large passenger and cargo aircraft.

The second phase of the airport is scheduled to be completed by 2030 and the final phase by 2050 when it will have the capacity to handle more than one million passengers and 50,000 tons of cargo a year.

The existing airport built in 1970 handles small aircraft flights to Pasni, Jiwani, Ormara, Karachi and Muscat.