The government has said it will cancel the licence of those hydropower projects that do not start construction activities as scheduled.

Minister for Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation (MoEWRI), Barshaman Pun, stated that if promoters of hydropower projects do not start constructing the projects on time then the government will revoke their licences.

“This is the time to rebuild the nation and move towards economic prosperity,” Pun stated, adding that it is time now to build mega and small hydropower projects at any cost within the set timeline. He informed that the government is collecting data on those hydropower projects that have received licences within the last five years.

“The process of providing licences to hydropower developers needs to be streamlined and we are planning to provide licences to only those promoters who have the capacity to make investments in a time bound manner,” Minister Pun added.

According to Pun, MoEWRI is gathering information on those investors who have acquired the licence to develop hydropower projects but have not started any work yet. “Once they have been identified we will publish their names and take action against them.”

“It is a sad situation that there are investors who are capable of building hydropower projects but do not have the licence to do so and there are some who have been holding on to their licences without doing anything tangible,” Pun mentioned.

The minister further added that the government will look at the five-year work schedule of all hydropower developers and will cancel the licences of those that have not achieved even a year’s target.

He also mentioned that if the government finds any person holding a licence trying to sell it for a profit then the licence will be revoked immediately.

The Ministry for Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation is committed to building hydropower projects with installed capacity of 10,000 megawatts within 10 years and this measure that we have initiated is the first step to achieving that goal, Pun stated.

The minister further added that the 99-point guideline introduced by the previous energy minister Janardan Sharma in 2015 to improve the energy sector of the country will be given continuity.

“Meanwhile, we are drafting a plan on how we can domestically consume the 10,000 megawatts of hydropower we plan to develop,” Minister Pun said. “If we have surplus power then we plan to sell it to India, China and Bangladesh.”

He further added that once the goal of generating 10,000 megawatts of power is achieved, the government will try to replace vehicles running on fossil fuels with electric vehicles. “The government is doing its best to promote electric vehicles.”

[April 15, 2018 / thehimalayantimes.com]