Following a month-long protest at the office of the NPBCL by a struggle committee led by former board member Raju Man Maharjan as well as political pressure, Joshi had tendered his resignation on January 31. Almost three years have elapsed after the company got license to develop the project in Build Own Operate and Transfer model.
Joshi had been criticized for failure to bring in investment and lack of corporate culture in the Rs 35 billion project, as per the initial cost estimate in 2013. Joshi, however, has cited 'personal work' in his resignation letter.
Vaidya informed Republica that Joshi will also remain as a board member to make the project a success. Talking to Republica, Maharjan hoped that the new chair will drive the company more efficiently and make the dream project of the people of Makawanpur district a reality. Maharjan is former vice chairman of Kulekhani VDC of Makwanpur.
Bhatta has already invested about Rs 95 million in the company and has promised to inject up to Rs 1 billion in the project of about Rs 35 billion. Though the team led by Joshi had initially announced investment collection from Nepali people, it could not collect the amount as people did not consider the project worth investing. The team could not even collect collect Rs 7 billion, an equity requirement for signing loan agreement with interested financial institutions. The company has so far collected Rs 317 million from a total of l 1,800 investors, including 1,200 poor farmers and commoners of Makwanpur. About 90 percent of the amount has been spent on different studies and field investigations and €a review by an interested Canadian investor. But the investment is not transparent and several of its payments have been suspected of being misused.
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