Kathmandu, April 2

The government has included the 42.5-megawatt Sanjen and 111MW Rasuwagadi hydropower projects in the government’s programme titled ‘Nepal’s Water, People’s Investment’ today.

The Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation has decided to include both the projects in the programme. The meeting of the programme’s coordination committee has also decided to issue extra 15.4 million units of shares for both the projects. However, the committee is yet to decide on the number of shares that will be issued for each project.

Earlier, Sanjen and Rasuwagadi projects had each issued 25 per cent shares as initial public offering to the public. Of the total shares allotted, 15 per cent had been allocated to the general public and 10 per cent to the project-affected locals.

Both the projects are in the construction phase and have completed more than 50 per cent of the physical works. The projects are being developed by subsidiary companies of Nepal Electricity Authority — Rasuwagadi Hydropower Company Ltd and Sanjen Jalavidyut Company Ltd.

Prabin Aryal, joint secretary and spokesperson for the ministry, informed that the decision to include both the hydropower projects in the ‘Nepal’s Water, People’s Investment’ programme was made so as to increase the participation of people in hydropower shares.

“Both the projects are in the construction phase and will be completed on schedule, so we decided to include them in the programme.”

The government had launched the ‘Nepal’s Water, People’s Investment’ programme on February 13 with an aim to raise Rs 102.3 billion through equity shares from the public to build over one-and-a-half dozen hydropower projects.

The programme aims to generate 3,479 megawatts of electricity by investing Rs 698.8 billion in 19 hydropower projects.

As per plan, the government had earlier issued shares of the 37MW Upper Trishuli III B hydropower project located in Nuwakot district.