No confusions over implementation of Budhigandaki Project: PM Dahal

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has said there is no doubt ahead in regard with implementing the Budhigandaki Hydropower Project. He pledged to implement it with utmost priority.

While inaugurating the Project's field office at Siurenitar in Gorkha, where the Project's environmental impact assessment, compensation distribution, and rehabilitation unit is located, the Prime Minister said the Project's DPR had been already prepared and it had been followed by the establishment of a Company office.

 A significant part of land acquisition has been successfully completed. The government policies and programmes accord utmost priority to the project, according to the Prime Minister.

  "The project will see a steady progress under any circumstances. All necessary documents for the project implementation have been meticulously prepared and executed. Presently, the government is focused on the investment management for it. This is deemed a 'ready to go' type project. We are effortful to take it into the implementation phase soon. We have no excuse to delay it under any circumstances. I hereby direct the Energy Ministry, Nepal Electricity Authority, Budhigandaki Hydropower Company and the bodies concerned to deliver proactively for its progress."

Such projects could be a milestone in the development of the energy sector, he said, stating that the 1,200 megawatts hydropower project that provides quality contributions not only to Gorkha and Dhading districts but to the development and prosperity of the entire country is the national pride multidimensional project.

"This is the largest power generation project among the projects developed in Nepal so far. Apart from electricity, this is important also in view of the tourism development, fish farming, and the holistic development of the lower coastal area," he said.

The project has carried many potentials be it from freeing the country from electricity crisis during winter to strengthening energy and tourism development, creating job opportunities, increasing the country's economic activities by increasing production in the goods and service sectors, increasing national income growths by connecting multidimensional businesses including fish farming, and requiring less investment in linking with the national transmission line, he viewed.

The government has established the Budhigandaki hydropower company for the construction of the reservoir-based project.

On 16 July, 2023, Minister for Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation Shakti Bahadur Basnet inaugurated the headquarters office of the company based in Kathmandu. In the Nepali month of Asar, 2079, the government had decided to establish the company with the authorized capital of Rs 60 billion.

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