By the month of mid May-June in the current fiscal year, a total of NPR 1.7381 billion has been collected in royalties from hydropower projects. According to the Department of Electricity Development, including dues from the current and previous fiscal years, a total of NPR 1.73 billion in royalties has been collected so far.

“According to Section 11 of the Electricity Act, 2049 (1992), a person who has obtained a license must pay royalty at the rate of NPR 100 per installed kilowatt annually and 2 percent of the average selling price per kilowatt hour for a period of 15 years from the commencement of commercial production of hydropower.”

In addition, after 15 years, hydropower projects will have to pay royalties to the government at the rate of Rs 1,000 per installed kilowatt per year and 10 percent of the average selling price per unit kilowatt-hour.

In the fiscal year 2023/24, a royalty of Rs 3.444 billion was collected. The department has also stated that up to the fiscal year 2023/24, there are royalty arrears of Rs 243.826 billion from various hydropower projects.

On April 4, the department asked the Nepal Electricity Authority to recover the remaining royalties from private promoters who had not paid the royalties due by fiscal year 023/24.

The department had issued a notice that the revenue would be collected by deducting the royalty amount from the amount due to the authority to private promoters. The department has collected 32.26 billion 28 million rupees in royalty from the fiscal year 2009/2010 to the current fiscal year. In the fiscal year 2022/2023, 3.15 billion 51 million rupees were collected as royalty and in the fiscal year 2021/2022, 3.57 billion rupees were collected as royalty. In the fiscal year 066/67, 768 million 844 thousand rupees were collected as royalty.

Source: Kantipur