Kathmandu, Oct. 6
Nepali private sector has urged
the government, political parties and other stakeholders to immediately pass
the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC)’s Nepal Compact Project immediately.
Three umbrella organisations
of the private sector – Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and
Industry (FNCCI), Confederation of Nepalese Industries (CNI) and Nepal Chamber
of Commerce (NCC) – issued a joint statement on Wednesday to pass the project
ensuring the national interest of the country.
“MCC project will ensure
timely construction of transmission line and maintenance of strategic road and
support in high economic growth,” read the statement. “In the post COVID-19
pandemic scenario, Nepal needs a huge investment to take the battered economy
back to track while the MCC project will create electricity export base in the
long run and transfer modern technology.”
The private sector associations
said that pandemic has caused a shrink in internal resources while foreign
support has not been increased. In the first month of the current fiscal year
2021/22, foreign investment is reduced by 49 per cent. In this scenario, US$
500 million grant support is crucial for Nepal, they said.
In absence of high-capacity
cross-border transmission lines, a significant amounf of energy is being wasted
during wet season. If the country couldn’t incrase the per capita electricity
consumption, energy will be wasted in the dry season as well within a few
years.
“At the same time, poor road
infrastructure has resulted in increased cost of industry and business. It has
weakened Nepal’s competitive capacity,” read the statement signed by the
presidents of FNCCI, CNI and NCC – Shekhar Golchha, Vishnu Kumar Agrawal and
Rajendra Malla respectively.
Nepal and
MCC signed an agreement in September 2017 for a USD 630 million project to
construct large transmission
lines, including Butwal-Gorakhpur cross-border transmission facility, and
rehabilitate strategic roads.
The
Electricity Transmission Project will build 312 km of 400 kV electricity
transmission lines and three substations and provide technical assistance for
the power sector in Nepal.
The
312 km of transmission line will pass through 30 municipalities of 10
districts. Altogether 856 towers will be installed to support the transmission
lines.
The
locations for the three substations are in Ratmate, Damauli and New Butwal.
Likewise,
the Road Maintenance Project aims to enhance current practices in the
maintenance of Nepal’s strategic roads network and will provide technical
assistance to the Department of Roads (DoR) and Roads Board Nepal.
Maintenance
interventions will include pavement improvement techniques and include safety
enhancement features. New pavement improvement technology adopted are Full
Depth Recycling (FDR) and superpave asphalt concrete which follows the
principle of recycling existing pavement material.
As per the agreement the
project should be completed within five years and in case of incompletion, the
remaining budget would be routed back to the MCC, United States of America. The
project was supposed to be kicked off on 30 June 2020.
Nepal is divided in the
retification of the agreement by the parliament and rumours had created
suspicion in the part of people about the project.
Private sector said that due
to the time limit, this project could be a model for development governance.
MCC is in implementation in about 30 countries across the world.
Earlier in September, Vice President of Compact
Operations of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Fatema Z. Sumar had
visited Nepal to facilitate the implementation of MCC – Nepal Programme.
She
hold meetings with Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, former PM and Chiarman of
CPN (UML) KP Sharma Oli, former PM and Chairman of CPN (MC) Pushpa Kamal Dahal
Prachanda, former PM and Chairman of CPN (US) Madhav Kumar Nepal, Finance
Minister Janardan Sharma and other leaders.
However,
her visit couldn’t bring immediate results.
Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 7 October 2021.
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