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dam-l LS: Nepal wants early use of hydro potential
>Monday May 3, 5:09 am
>Eastern Time
>
>INTERVIEW-Nepal wants
>early use of hydro
>potential
>
>By Gopal Sharma
>
>KATHMANDU, May 3 (Reuters) - Nepal should move quickly to tap its
>hydroelectric power potential before alternative energy sources are
>developed, the Himalayan kingdom's prime minister said on Monday.
>
>Girija Prasad Koirala, taking a break from campaigning for the staggered
>general elections which began on Monday, told Reuters in an interview that
>development of other energy sources like gas could render Nepal's vast
>hydropower potential obsolete.
>
>``We want to exploit it quickly,'' he said.
>
>Nepal's numerous snow-fed Himalayan rivers have a combined potential to
>generate up to 83,000 megawatts of hydropower.
>
>A lack of funds and know how has meant that the kingdom uses less than 0.5
>percent of its generation potential, and only 15 percent of its 22 million
>people have access to electricity.
>
>``We welcome foreign investors in water resources. They will be allowed to
>build, own, operate and transfer water resource facilities,'' said Koirala,
>who expects his Nepali Congress party to form a majority government after
>the elections.
>
>He said U.S. energy giant Enron International (ENE - news) was planning a
>mega power plant on the Karnali river in western Nepal, and some foreign
>firms were keen to develop a smaller 300 MW Upper Karnali powerhouse
>elsewhere on the same river.
>
>Koirala said the government had finalised investment deals with a Chinese
>firm for a tunnel road link to Kathmandu from its low-lying flat land
>bordering India.
>
>He gave no details of the scheme, which would halve the six-hour journey to
>the national capital.
>
>The prime minister said he also hoped to phase out the ubiquitous and
>exhaust-belching three-wheeled autorickshaws from the Kathmandu valley,
>replacing them with electric trolley buses to improve air quality.
>
>All these schemes, he said, would be finalised after the polls as his ruling
>alliance, whose main duty is to oversee elections, could not announce
>development projects under an election code of conduct, he said.
>
>Koirala, on his second stint as prime minister, said the economic
>liberalisation initiated during his first term in 1992 would be vigorously
>pursued if his party came to power.
>
>He said his centrist party favoured all-out privatisation of state firms if
>private parties were keen to take over. ``We want to liberalise further and
>go beyond the mixed economy.''
>
>Koirala's liberal policies and the drive to privatise state firms drew
>bitter criticism from his communist rivals, who promise to go slow if they
>came to power.
>
>``We want mixed economic policy. Blind privatisation does not help,''
>Communist United Marxist-Leninist (UML) party member Pradeep Nepal told
>Reuters on Sunday.
>
>Nepali Congress and the UML, two main partners in the current three-party
>ruling alliance, are rivals in the polls, which are widely expected to bring
>another splintered parliament.
>
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> Glenn Switkes, Director, Latin America Program,
> International Rivers Network
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