Kathmandu, Oct 12: The Legislature-Parliament Agriculture and Water Resources Committee has directed the Ministry of Energy to inform within seven days the latest progress made in the appointment of the Chief Executive Officer.
The meeting of the Committee today held at Singha Durbar directed the Ministry to come up with an explanation over what the reason was behind not implementation of the previous directive towards the same, according to the Committee Chair Gagan Thapa.
Earlier, majority of the Committee members speaking today expressed concern over the Ministry’s ignorance towards the earlier directives and the NEA leadership not giving attention towards completing hydropower projects on time.
The MPs also drew the attention of the Energy Ministry towards the increasing time of loadshedding, failure in speeding up the construction of the trans-border transmission line, increasing cost of projects and the need to review the license issued for new hydropower projects.
Some of the MPs blamed political intervention for the delay in the projects with government investment in compared to the private-run projects.
Those drawing attention of the Ministry and the Energy Minister were among others Dr Prakash Sharan Mahat, Raju Khanal, Tsewang Tenjen Tamang, Krishna Dhital, Dilli Raj Kafley, Gyanendra Bahadur Karki, Amrit Kumar Bohara and Rekha Sharma.
Meanwhile, responding to the concerns raised by the Committee members, Energy Minister Radha Gyawali said the Ministry was working to resolve the problems facing the transmission lines and that her intention was not to ignore the Committee directives.
Stating that the Ministry is ready to resolve the problems related to the completion of projects on time and the rising costs, Minister Gyawal also gave assurances to give NEA a new leadership soon.
Process of appointment of the CEO has begun as per the Supreme Court order, she said.
The Supreme Court had directed the Ministry of Energy to appoint Mukesh Raj Kafley as the CEO of the NEA. RS
