Dhangadhi airport expansion project traps local residents in uncertainty

Hundreds of families are unable to rebuild or move on as the project remains stalled with no budget, no timeline, and no compensation plan in sight.

Seven years ago, Bhagarathi Bohara and her family were displaced from ward 7 of Shuklaphanta Municipality in Kanchanpur district due to the expansion of the Mahakali Irrigation Project. Their five-room concrete house and 13 kattha of land were lost to the irrigation canal that entered the area through Tanakpur and Banbasa. After three years of hardship in a makeshift thatched house, the family moved to Geta, near the Dhangadhi Airport, in 2021.