Kathmandu, October 22

The government has granted permission to Tanahun Hydropower Company to use forest land and to cut the required number of trees in the area covered by hydropower project in Tanahun district.

With this decision made by the meeting of Council of Ministers on September 26, the 140-megawatt reservoir hydropower project will now be able to use 417.23 hectares of forest area and cut 181,571 trees from community forests of Tanahun.

The project is in the final stage of agreement with the Department of Forests (DoF) to cut the trees in the area covered by the hydropower project. “We have received the draft agreement from DoF and are in the final stage of agreement with the concerned authorities,” said Sachen Gautam, communication expert of the project.

As per a provision of the Guidelines on Utilisation of Forest Area by National Priority Projects, the meeting of the Council of Ministers held on September 26 authorised the project to use the forest area and cut the trees.

As per the provision of the guidelines, the project will have to compensate the 417.23 hectares of land that it will be utilising to the government and also plant 1,600 trees per hectare and conserve them for five years or will have to pay money as per the rules of the government. Similarly, project will have to plant 25 trees for each tree that it cuts down and conserve them for five years.

The project needs a total of 1,075 hectares of land, of which 417.23 hectares is being provided by government and the remaining land is being acquired from the local people of Tanahun district.

The estimated cost to construct the project is Rs 50 billion, which also includes the interest that needs to be paid for loans taken and for rural electrification programme.