Earlier, the government had expressed a strategic commitment to give high priority to upgrading transmission lines. But, the government has not allocated the required funds so far.[break]
The committee instructed the government to provide the money for building more transmission lines concluding that the inadequacy of lines has had adverse impact on power generation. Thanks to the lack of proper management of transmission lines, the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has not been able to equitably supply power across the country.
In its meeting conducted Tuesday, the committee also instructed the government to properly implement the provisions for concession to encourage private and cooperative sectors to invest in hydropower. The government has a strategy to promote domestic investors.
The committee has also instructed the Ministry of Energy to come up with a comprehensive work plan, which consists of recommendations put forth by two different taskforces, to develop the hydropower sector. Previously, one of the two taskforces had put forth an ambitious strategy to generate 10,000 MW of electricity within the next 10 years.
The committee has instructed the ministry to introduce strict provisions to discourage hydropower entrepreneurs from unnecessarily occupying rivers. The committee´s instructions follow news reports about some private entrepreneurs not expediting works for years despite acquiring power generation licenses. It is believed that they hold licenses to sell them for profit in future.
The committee also directed the ministry to submit the detailed report of the status of implementation of electricity emergency plan. Two years back, when Nepal began to face prolonged power outage, the NEA had announced an emergency plan to fight power shortage. But, the NEA has been accused of not doing anything to implement the plan.
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