“Electric power in Nepal: History, experiences & possibilities.”

Electricity demand trends indicate that to ensure energy supply continues to meet the growing demand; considerable human and financial resources are required. There are two options of hydroelectricity development in Nepal. The first one is the development of hydroelectricity to meet the domestic electricity demand and the second one is to export the power. The major focus should be on the hydroelectricity development to meet the national requirements. Hence, the fulfillment of the local electricity demand can be moreover taken care of by small hydroelectricity and micro-hydroelectricity plants. These are turning into a great success in the context of Nepal. Their number has increased significantly in the past few years. The time has changed now. There are no more grants and subsidies in the development of hydroelectricity sector. The resources are scarce and the government itself cannot provide financing to the hydroelectric projects significantly. That's why; the private investment has become the necessity of time in the development of hydroelectricity in the country to meet the targets.

Past experiences prove that in the sector of hydroelectricity development, transparency and people's participation are the fundamental requirements to be met so that hydroelectric projects could be developed commercially. Only this approach will lead to the self-reliance which will ultimately produce the rapid development in this sector. Procedural and institutional transparency are other important factors to develop such projects on competitive basis, so that hydroelectricity could be produced at cheaper rates affordable to the people and competitive enough to the export.