Kathmandu, February 11

A meeting of the board of directors of Nepal Purbadhar Bikash Company Ltd (NPBCL) — developer of the Kathmandu-Kulekhani-Hetauda Tunnel (KKHT) Highway Project — has appointed Bhaban Bhatta as chairman of the company on Wednesday.

The board meeting endorsed the resignation of incumbent chairman Kush Kumar Joshi and decided to extend the

responsibility to Bhatta unanimously. Joshi has been appointed as chief patron of the company.

Bhatta is chairman of TBI Group and vice president of the Non-Resident Nepalis Association (NRNA). His company, TBI Holdings, owns a majority of the shares of the company. TBI Holdings had pledged to invest Rs one billion in the company. It has already invested 10 per cent of the pledged amount and the remaining amount will be invested after due-diligence audit of the company.

NPBCL has 1,783 shareholders of which 1,200 are locals of Makawanpur district. Since the establishment of the company, it has been trying to lure investment, both foreign and domestic, for the construction of the proposed 54-km expressway, which consists of three tunnels of a total length of 4.5 kilometres. NPBCL was formed on September 6, 2011.

The project is expected to cost Rs 34.87 billion based on estimations made in 2012 and 95 per cent of the environmental

impact assessment (EIA) of the project has already been completed.

NPBCL had obtained construction licence for the project on May 16, 2013. In its financial closure report submitted to the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport (MoPIT) in March of 2015, the firm had said that it was trying to woo

investors from Canadian firms Crown Corporations and Shej Global for investment worth $280 million. After reviewing the report submitted by NPBCL, the MoPIT had recently asked NPBCL to clarify its financial closure report.