April 4: Newly appointed Minister for Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation, Shakti Bahadur Basnet has stated that increasing domestic consumption of electricity produced in the country is his main priority. During a welcome program organized by Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) on Monday, Minister Basnet said that the consumption capacity will be increased by strengthening and expanding the infrastructure of transmission and distribution system in the areas where electricity is not available.

He said that he is aware of the problems associated with the use of forest areas and tree cutting for the construction of hydropower and transmission line projects. Basnet, who is also a former forest minister, said that he will actively work to prevent delays in the construction of projects due to forest and security issues. He said that NEA has set a positive standard in the country among the public institutions.

In the program, Secretary of the Ministry of Energy, Resources and Irrigation, Dinesh Kumar Ghimire said that improvement and expansion of transmission and distribution system, construction of strategic large reservoir hydropower projects and the expansion of electricity services should be emphasized in order to increase electricity consumption internally.

Kulman Ghising, executive director of the authority, while presenting a detailed description of the organization said that power management during the rainy season is the major challenge at present.

Ghising said, “In order to increase the consumption within the country and to export the surplus electricity, it is seen that more than Rs 850 billion will be needed to implement the plans for the next five years, including the projects under construction for electricity generation, transmission and distribution. But the government resources are not enough for this.

“The resources need to be managed by the government, authorities and donor agencies,” he said.