The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has agreed to provide grant assistance of Rs 2.91 billion to the government as the Project Preparatory Facility for hydropower projects.
The agreement to this effect was signed between Madhu Kumar Marasini, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Finance and Kenichi Yokoyama, Country Director of ADB on behalf of their respective governments in the capital on Friday.
The objective of the project is to support the 10-year road map for hydropower development with the aim of generating an additional 10,000 MW of hydropower. Large reservoir type hydropower projects are said to helpful to achieve the said objectives, said the Finance Ministry in a statement.
The proposed project preparatory facility aims at developing large reservoir storage hydropower projects. The facility consists of two major output components – feasibility studies and detail engineering studies and public private partnership project development services.
The first components includes: feasibility studies, including initial environmental examinations (IEEs), environmental impact assessments (EIAs) and social impact assessments (SIAs) of Sun Koshi 2 (1110 MW), Sun Koshi 3 (536 MW) and an update of feasibility study with detail engineering studies of Dudh Koshi (300MW) hydropower projects.
All the three above mentioned projects are storage type hydropower projects. The second component will help for project development services to facilitate private sector investment to develop hydropower projects with a potential to export.
The total cost of the project is estimated to US$ 26.25 million. The government has to contribute 20 percent of the total costs mostly in the form of taxes, duties, office accommodations. The project preparatory facility grant closing date is June 30, 2019. Source: nepalnews