Kathmandu, June 29
The government has decided to open a new company to construct the ambitious Budhigandaki hydropower project on its own.
A cabinet meeting held on Tuesday endorsed the Energy Ministry‘s proposal to establish a public company and generate investments.
Energy Minister Pampha Bhusal says the government will begin the construction work in the next fiscal year which begins in mid-July.
The 1,200-megawatt project, if successful, will be Nepal’s biggest hydropower company.
In the mid-2010s, the estimated cost of the project was Rs 311 billion (approximately USD 2.593 billion). Now, the government wants to calculate the cost again considering changes in the market prices of construction materials since then.
In November 2017, the Sher Bahadur Deuba-led government decided to cancel the contract signed with the China Gezhouba Group Company. The government, then, had announced to construct the Budhigandaki project on its own. However, following the parliamentary elections the next year, new prime minister KP Sharma Oli had decided to give it back to the Chinese company.
With the new decision, the Chinese company will again lose the project contract.
