Taplejung, February 4

Minister for Energy Janardan Sharma said there would be no place in the country without access to electricity within the next three years.

Speaking at a programme organised in Taplejung’s district headquarters yesterday, Minister Sharma said that the government was working hard to ensure access to electricity to all human settlements across the country in three years.

Sharma said, “As per the Rural Electrification Project, the Ministry of Energy is working hard to make places with access to electricity load-shedding free and extend transmission line to places without access to electricity.”

Minister Sharma said that about 40 per cent of the country’s settlements still don’t have access to electricity at the moment.

Minister Sharma informed that the ministry has extended the central transmission line to Taplejung, Rukum, Jajarkot, Kalikot, and other rural areas since he assumed office.

He said the government lacked policy-level preparations for power production and utilisation of generated power. He said the government was working to formulate a 37-point action plan towards this end.

He shared that plans to construct one hydro-power project in each district through public and government investment is in progress, and reforms at policy level are being considered to speed up  construction of mega hydro-projects.

Studies are under way to install smart metres to curb electricity leakage and enable payment of electricity tariff through mobile phones, the minister said.