Kathmandu, July15:

A section of the members of Parliament, at press meet held today, stressed the need to supply quality solar tukis to locals of nine districts — Aacham, Bajura, Bajhang, Jajarkot and five districts of the Karnali zone — through the Karnali Ujjalo programme.

The programme was launched last year with the aim to provide light to the people of Karnali and its adjoining districts. They blamed the government for awarding contract to a government body without holding competition among the contractors. The government handed the contract to the Alternative Energy Centre under the Ministry of Environment and Science and Technology to provide three lakh solar tukis to locals of nine districts.

Suresh Malla, NC’s MP from Bajhung district, said: “The government should ban the distribution of low quality tukis after conducting a fair probe into the project.” Ram Bahadur Bista, MP from Accham, said that the project was launched against the consensus of the MPs from Karnali.

UML MP Chandra Bahadur Shahi said: “The project should give equal emphasis to every targeted district.”