Kathmandu, June 21:

The WWF Nepal will provide a grant assistance of $1.69 lakh to the Kanchanjunga Conservation Area Management Council (KCAMC) for the execution of a 35-KW micro-hydro project.

Tseten Dandu Sherpa, chairperson of the KCAMC, and Anil Manandhar, country representative of the WWF Nepal, signed an agreement here today to fund the ‘Micro-hydro Project for the People and Biodiversity in the Kanchanjanga Conservation Area’.

The local community will also contribute nearly $16,000 through labour and local transportation. Once executed, the project will light up 77 households in Ghunsa and Phale.

Work on the project will start from July and end by June.

According to officials at the WWF Nepal, the micro-hydro project aims to promote sources of renewable energy in order to enhance technical and managerial capacities of local institutions.

They said the community will assume ownership of the project. The project will generate income from enterprises that will raise the living standards of the locals and help in the conservation of the area.

On September 22, 2006, the government had decided to hand over the management of the KCA to the KCAMC.