No developer turned up to submit the financial bid for the airport project as the deadline ended on July 31.

While no one in the state Tourism Department is ready to explain the lack of interest about the project among the developers, sources said the companies were not convinced about the feasibility of building the airport at Kushinagar.

“The matter will soon be placed before the empowered high-level committee. Nothing can be said as of now,” said Avanish Awasthi, Tourism Secretary and Managing Director of Uttar Pradesh State Tourism Development Corporation, which is the nodal agency for the project.

However, the government is not in a mood to give up the project, and is planning to fix another date for inviting bids. This time, the government is hopeful of addressing the reservations of the developers, and also confident of convincing them about the project’s feasibility.

The project, estimated to involve an investment of Rs 560 crore, was conceived in 2008. It is proposed to come up over 550 acres of land. The existing airstrip of the state’s Civil Aviation Department on about 97 acres of land was to be upgraded and expanded according to international standards on the PPP model. IL&FS was selected as the consultant of the project and the developers were offered about 200 acres nearby for commercial use as sweeteners.

According to the feasibility study of the project, the proposed airport was expected to get one lakh tourists from countries like Thailand, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Japan, Myanmar for the Buddhist circuit in eastern UP.

The Tourism Department claims to have got all clearances from the Union Ministry of Civil Aviation and also the environmental clearance.

Early this year, on the basis of the Request for Proposal document submitted by the interested developers, four developers were selected for the project.

The selected developers included the GMR Group, which has undertaken upgradation of the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi, Larsen and Toubro, Gammon India Ltd and GVK Power and Infrastructure Ltd.