Power to the people
Rural electrification is the way to achieve economic empowerment. A former MP from Sankhuwasabha understood this 20 years ago and on his own initiative set out to supply power to his constituency in Eastern Nepal and with the profit, run a college in the district.
Two decades later, as the debate on the ratification of $500 million Millennium Challenge Corporation project that will primarily upgrade Nepal’s transmission lines polarises the country, it may be time to rethink our national priorities.
Excerpts from a report published 20 years ago this week in #82 22-28 February 2002:
When Hari Bairagi Dahal was the UML MP from Sankhuwasabha district five years ago, the one thing people in his constituency always asked for was electricity. He went around the government ministries in Kathmandu, he even staged a sit-in outside Singha Darbar to increase allocation for infrastructure development for his district. But no one listened. He could not deliver, and he also lost his party ticket to contest the 1998 elections.
Dahal then got together a group of local businessmen, took a loan from a consortium of banks in Kathmandu and invested in the Piluwa Khola hydropower plant near Chainpur that will start providing 3MW of power to the national grid by April.
Taking advantage of a landmark policy approved by then deputy prime minister Shailaja Acharya in 1995 which set out a formula for the Nepal Electricity Authority’s buy-back rate from private power suppliers, and stipulated an annual 6% increase for power from small hydro projects, Dahal had no problem convincing bankers that it was a sound return on investment. The buy-back rate was set at Rs 4 per kW-hour for peak power and Rs 2.75 non-peak. So, the Arun Valley Hydro Power Development Company Pvt Ltd was set up. Dahal’s partners put in 30% of the Rs 280 million for Piluwa, and the banks put in 70%. Private hydropower development in Nepal has now become so lucrative Dahal is surprised more businesses in Kathmandu aren’t jumping onto the bandwagon.
“In very few ventures do you have both the raw material and the market guaranteed,” he says. “With hydropower the raw material is water, and the market is the NEA.”
From archives material of Nepali Times of the past 20 years, site search: www.nepalitimes.com
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