Kathmandu, September 17: Independent Power Producers’ Association, Nepal (IPPAN) has objected to the Electricity Bill, 2080. Power producers under IPPAN have demanded amendments in the electricity bill registered by the government in parliament.Bill was enacted to amend and integrate the existing Act related to electricity registered in the Parliament on Bhadau 27.
PPAN has objected to some provisions of the Electricity Bill-2080 prepared by the government to amend and integrate the existing Act related to electricity registered in the Parliament. IPPAN has demanded that the license period of hydropower projects should be fixed at 50 years, especially in the private sector.
IPPAN said it did not give any opportunity for formal discussion when the bill was introduced. The bill has proposed provisions that undermine the role of the private sector in power generation and demanded amendment. According to clause 19 of the proposed electricity bill, the license period will be 50 years in the case of hydropower projects and 45 years in the case of other types of projects.
‘We demand that it be amended to maintain the tenure of survey license for power generation for five years and 50 years for power generation license as per the erstwhile Electricity Act-2049 BS,’ IPPAN said in a statement. It has demanded that the provision of 25 years license should be amended to 35 years in the case of power projects of nature other than water resources.
IPPAN has demanded that the government should be given license from competition on the basis of free shares, electricity energy to be given free of cost, the amount agreed to be paid in advance, the amount agreed to be paid in annual installments and the electricity tariff rate mentioned in the bill. ‘If the government has to pay so much money and facilities before the construction of the project, the cost of hydropower generation will become expensive and it will not be competitive in the international market, electricity will be expensive for domestic consumers and nepali industry will lose competitiveness due to expensive electricity,’ it said.
IPPAN has suggested to add the role of the private sector in identifying and developing hydropower projects on its own in this bill like in the Electricity Act 2049 BS. IPPAN believes that the private sector will not be attracted to electricity generation due to the provision of not being able to identify and develop the projects on its own and the private sector can take only the projects tendered by the government.’Therefore, at least the existing system should be in place to identify the projects to be constructed with domestic investment,’ ippan said in a statement.
IPPAN has suggested that after 15 years, the electricity royalty connected capacity has been increased by Rs 200 per kilowatt to Rs 1,200 per kilowatt and 10 percent of the selling price per unit has been increased by 2 percentage points to 12 percent.
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