July 14: Minister for Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation Shakti Bahadur Basnet has said that the country will add 900 megawatts of power in the upcoming fiscal year.    
Responding to the lawmakers' concerns on the Appropriation Bill during a meeting of the National Assembly on Thursday, Minister Basnet reiterated that the government was focused more on increasing domestic power consumption and to export the surplus power.    
Currently, the country produces around 2,000 megawatts of electricity.    
Minister Basnet shared with the National Assembly members that the country is expected to export 10,000 megawatt of power to India in the coming decade and the projects with the capacity of 20,000 megawatt of power would be developed by then to make this happen.    
Likewise, Minister Basnet shared the government’s plan to advance some reservoir-based mega projects.    
On the occasion, the lawmakers had questioned the minister why an Indian company was awarded to build the Lower Arun Hydropower Project.  In response, Minister Basnet said that the process for the development of the Lower Arun Hydropower Project was started long time ago. -- RSS