Upbeat about tourism, pvt sector pours money in hospitality sector

KATHMANDU, March 22: As the government accords high priority to infrastructure projects to woo foreign tourists and investors, the private sector is increasingly attracted to the hospitality industry. There are about a dozen star-rated hotels, including four of five-star standard in the pipeline, targeting high-end tourists. The existing hotels are expanding their capacity, too. Talking to Republica, President of the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) Suraj Vaidya said that most of Nepali investors have shown interest in hospitality business in recent days. “A lot of businesspersons are talking about opening hotels these days as they expect rise in the number of tourists following the government´s plan to build different infrastructure projects, including Tribhuvan International Airport expansion project and regional airports,” added Vaidya. Infrastructure is a major bottleneck when it comes to the flow of tourists. Three hotels in affiliation with international chains are in the pipeline. Industrialist Sashi Kanta Agrawal is preparing to establish a three-star hotel in Thamel and another five-star hotel in Naxal in association with Marriot International. Agrawal said that the construction of both the projects has started, and that they will cost Rs 3.8 billion in total. “We decided to institute both hotels assessing the prospect of tourism growth,” said Agrawal, adding that the number of foreign tourists is likely to grow by three times within the next five years. However, nobody has constructed a five-star hotel in the country after Hyatt Hotel was completed back in 2000. Agrawal further said that businesspersons are upbeat about the tourism sector as different international reports have also listed Nepal as a favorite destination for tourists. Another five-star hotel is in the offing, too. It is being promoted MIT Group Holdings, in association with Sheraton Hotel, another international chain of hotel. Sesh Ghale, President of Non-Resident Nepali Association (NRNA) is one of the promoters of MIT Group Holdings. NRNA had announced yet another five-star hotel in the country during its sixth global conference in Kathmandu in October. Another five-star hotel named Chhaya Center, also with all facilities of a shopping complex, is in the pipeline in Thamel area with an investment of Rs 3 billion. According to FNCCI officials, eight proposals of hotels and resorts targeting high-end tourists will be floated to foreign investors in a business conclave slated for Sunday and Monday in Hyatt Hotel. The total project worth is about Rs 8 billion. It is said that new project proposals also include of boutique resort and wellness hotel targeting high-end tourists. Ananda Raj Mulmi, former president of FNCCI, stresses on the improvement of infrastructure, better facilities for tourists and programs to increase per capita spending of foreign tourists. Foreign tourists spend only US$ 34 per day in Nepal which is one of the lowest among the South Asian destinations, said Mulmi. He also suggested that investors should devise a holistic approach while planning hospitality projects instead of merely focusing on the capital city. However, Vaidya doubts whether investors vying for hotel projects have assessed the market well. Citing huge investment in sectors such as ready made garment, carpet and real estate, hydropower, banks and financial institutions in the past two decades, he added, “Unfortunately, not many of such investors could sustain their businesses.” Ropeway is also another attraction for the investors as there are about half a dozen ropeway projects being developed in different parts of the country.

REPUBLICA

Let contract farming safeguard farmers

By RUDRA PANGENI

KATHMANDU, March 27:With farmers expecting a raise and mill operators blaming decreasing market prices, payment to sugarcane farmers has been deferred for months with both the parties not being able to fix a minimum price. 

Last year, it had all been easy. A rate of a minimum of Rs 481 per quintal was set quite early and farmers say this encouraged them more to take up sugarcane farming this year. They had also expected the prices to go up. But the sugar mill operators said they couldn’t even afford to pay last year’s prices what with sugar prices bucking the trend of other commodities and going down. 

Farmers accuse the operators of trying to take advantage of the bump in supplies, about 20 percent more sugarcane was harvested this year, they say. 
“Sugar mills have taken the growth in the production as an opportunity to bargain with us,” Kapil Muni Mainali, the president of Federation of Sugarcane Farmers of Nepal, says. They have demanded at least a 10 percent increase in prices this year based on inflation. 

Mills, on the other hand, want the market forces to determine the rates. 

“Price of sugarcane should be decided on the basis of the market price of sugar,” Sashi Kanta Agrawal, the president of Sugar Producer’s Association (SPA), says.
“The factory-gate rate was Rs 58 per kg last year but has decreased by Rs 6 to 8 this year. Therefore we can not pay more than Rs 460 per quintal.” A quintal of sugarcane gives about 9 kg of sugar. Last year’s total sugarcane production was 29 million quintals, which was worth Rs 13.94 billion. 

The wrangle between about 500,000 families involved in sugarcane farming in 13 districts of the Tarai and the 10 sugar mills in the country have dragged on for four months. 

Rounds of meetings between farmers and mill operators could not reach a deal. They agreed on an advance payment of Rs 400 per quintal on December 24 and started delivering the sugarcane to the mills after a delay in supply by a month from the normal sugarcane harvesting and supplying season, which runs till the third week of April. Later, both groups sought government’s assistance for mediation on February 15. 

Industry Secretary Krishna Gyawali formed a taskforce led by Ministry of Industry joint-secretary Jit Bahadur Thapa to propose a minimum price. However, two rounds of meetings have yielded no result. The last meeting of the taskforce, which also comprises representatives of concerned ministries, farmers and sugar mills, was held on Tuesday. 

Multiple sources say that sugar mills are trying to benefit from the significant growth in production by bargaining with the farmers. Moreover, the farmers’ representative Mainali has accused sugar mills of artificially keeping sugar prices low.



“Last year, we had agreed on minimum price of Rs 58 per kg sugar but mills were selling sugar at up to Rs 70,” Mainali says. The variation in sugar prices also affects the minimum price paid to farmers as sugar mills pay 70 percent of the VAT as a subsidy to farmers and the subsidy is calculated according to the factory-gate price on the day of price fixation. 

Economist Bishwambher Pyakuryal says the government should not leave sugarcane prices to the moods of free market as sugarcane farming is a sensitive business and farmers cannot bargain with sugar mills. 

“Therefore, the government should set the minimum floor price and protect farmers,” added Pyakuryal. He also suggested subsidizing of insurance premium to insure sugarcane farms and support the farmers’ bargaining capacity. 

In an application to Ministry of Industry (MoI), SPA has cited the sugarcane price of Rs 408 (Indian Rs 255) per quintal in Bihar should be taken as the basis. By adding 70 percent of the VAT SPA has proposed Rs 460. 

Vijoy Kumar Mallick, joint-secretary at the Ministry of Agricultural Development (MoAD), says the ministry can not set prices based on the Indian market as Indian farmers get a large amount of subsidies where Nepali farmers do not. Mallick is also a member of the taskforce, which is mandated to set the standard for the future sugarcane prices. 

BY-PRODUCTS

Molasses, press mud and bagasse are by-products of sugarcane at the sugar mills and are regarded as good sources of income for the mills. However, they are not considered while setting prices. Mainali wants income from by-products to be considered. Mallick is also of the view that the products should be counted as income of sugar mills while setting prices as is done in India.

Agrawal says mills earn a paltry amount from the by-products and the money is not even enough for machinery maintenance. 

MIDDLE MEN 

Farmers also complain that sugar mills use middle men to collect sugarcane from farmers. “With good production growth, industries have used middle men are buying sugarcane from farmers at Rs 250 to Rs 300 by harassing them and saying that their production will not be sold,” said Umesh Chandra Yadav, a sugarcane farmers’ leader in Nawalparasi. Middle men collect ‘permission letter of delivery of sugarcane’ from mills and cheat farmers by hiding the permission and bargaining with them, Yadav accuses. 

Agrawal says the SPA has also heard of middle men cheating farmers and are ready to issue a code of conduct for containing such malpractices. 

SUGARCANE AND SUGAR DEVELOPMENT BOARD 

Rajan Khanal, joint-secretary at the Ministry of Finance, says that there should be a board to deal with sugarcane farming and plan for the sugar economy of the country. Khanal is also member of the taskforce. The board also a should fix the minimum floor prices of sugarcane to assure farmers for sugarcane farming. 
The government instituted Sugarcane and Sugar Development Committee to draft the law for the board some six years ago. The first committee, led by Raj Narayan Yadav, had also drafted a statute for the board but the statute is gathering dust at MoAD. Mainali says a nine-member committee was instituted but it does not represent any sugarcane farmers. 

“Committee has been occupied by the cadres of political party and not a single task is done for the welfare of farmers,” blamed Mainali. 

The Government has earmarked a Rs 6 million budget for this year. The office of the Committee in Parwanipur Bara did not respond telephone call on Wednesday.
Officials say that contract farming law can also be a measure for safeguarding the mutual interest of both farmers and sugar mills. The law has been drafted by MoAD is yet to be tabled in the parliament.

Low spending of state-coffers deprives taxpayers of economic benefits

RUDRA PANGENI KATHMANDU, March 13:Taxpayers pay the government and it is expected to spend it in developing infrastructure, stimulate the economy, create jobs and provide services to the taxpayers directly or indirectly. Of course, some amount of inefficiency is expected from governments, what with every spending having to go through different levels of bureaucratic and procedural approval process. But the only ground that the Nepali government seems to be breaking is not roads, power plants or bridges, but how much of the budget remains unspent. The government has managed to spend just 13 percent or Rs 11 billion of the Rs 85 billion that it allocated for capital expenditures -- that is, spending directed at building, acquiring or upgrading infrastructures that have future benefits to the country -- in the first six months of the current fiscal year. This indicates that taxpayers are not benefiting and the economy is not in a dynamic position. Moreover, lack of economic activity in the public sector has also failed to nudge the private sector into spending more. As a result overall economic activity is crawling, which in turn affects job creation and earnings, and then stifles consumption. With less money circling through the economy, money collected through taxes fails to provide the common people with much economic benefit. The government’s periodic plan documents say that for every rupee of capital spending by the government, the private sector invests Rs 2. Provided low capital expenditure in the first half of the year, economists are doubtful that the economy will achieve the target of 5.5 percent growth. This year’s budget broke precedence from those of the past three ones when it was announced in full and on time, and the government at the time was much lauded. Things will finally get done, economists, the private sector and the general public alike said. But the rising waves of optimism that it created hit the inevitable submerged barriers and giant walls to finally ebb and become trickles flowing through puddles across the many pockmarked and unfinished road projects in the capital and the country. In addition to the number of usual suspects behind poor implementation, the election for the Constituent Assembly sapped up government employees’ time and attention when many were redeployed for about a month and half to conduct the election. Economist Posh Raj Pandey pinpoints structural problems as the major issue behind the delay in the approval of programs and the lengthy procurement processes behind the failure to spend the resources stagnating inside the state coffers. “Statistics say that 60 percent of the government’s actual expenditure happens in the last three months of the fiscal year due to time that programs take to complete the budget approval and contract processes,” Pandey adds. Economist Bishwambher Pyakuryal said the government’s way of spending in a short term makes the eventual work of poor quality and the expected developmental benefits are lost while the state has to spend again for the same work. An excerpt of the mid-term review report on budget says, “Budget implementation is stuck to the process and procedures, some projects have not yet started. There is no harmonization between available resources and their utilization.” Add to the pressing and recurrent problems like failure in land acquisition, red tape, local problems, and lack of time-bound action plans of projects. “Many projects, including transmission line, road and irrigation projects have come across a seemingly common problem of land acquisition in the absence of a strong and timely law to deal with the issue,” adds Nirmal Hari Adhikari, the undersecretary at the Budget Division of the Ministry of Finance (MoF). An outdated Land Acquisition Act of 1977 still prevails. Locals demand high prices for the land and the state authority ends up not being able to purchase land as the provision allows for paying of the lowest market price or having to negotiate long and hard to acquire the land. Speaking at a conference on ‘Government’s mega projects’ at MoF last week, Arjun Kumar Karki, the managing director of Nepal Electricity Authority, said the people of Kathmandu would have to live in the dark even when power plants around the country managed to generate enough energy because of failure to acquire land to install transmission lines. Likewise, political instability, according to high-level officials at MoF, is also behind the slow progress in spending as bureaucrats remain busy trying to draw the attention of political leaders and winning favor instead of doing their designated job. On the topic of low expenditure, newly appointed Finance Minister Ram Sharan Mahat stresses that a proper method is needed for budget preparation and prioritizing for better spending. "Budget was allocated for many projects without needful preparations and homework having been done. That was the main reason behind the low spending,” Mahat said, adding that the there is a dearth in resources in some projects whereas others have occupied the budget. He expressed dissatisfaction over allotment of budget before preparing programs and described the prioritizing of projects as baseless and without any parameters. Nineteen national-pride projects also paint a bleak picture in terms of their expenditure status. The mid-term review says, “The projects have only occupied the resources as the implementation is almost ineffective.” BUDGET PREPARATION  The past experience says that a well-prepared budget can lead to better implementation, but officials at MoF lament that budget preparation by ministries is taken for granted. An official at MoF, asking not to be named, said ministry officials are not serious and they merely count the amount in the budget and forward the program without enough preparation. Moreover, a recent heavy demand for non-budgetary programs and projects by ministries shows that they have paid little attention to implementing their budgets. In the first six months of the current fiscal year, ministries asked MoF for over Rs 10 billion to spend on fresh programs and projects, almost equal to amount of capital expenditure they have been able to spend over the period. WAY FORWARD  There is a common view that there is urgency for fresh policy, laws, and a working modality for improving capital expenditure. There is a need for an overhaul of the procurement law and for other necessary provisions to shorten processes that programs have to pass through before implementation as well as effective expenditure monitoring. Economist Pyakuryal says that there must be varying provisions for contracts depending on the types of projects, amount and programs instead of the existing blanket approach. “The laws no longer should be about awarding to the lowest bidder regardless of the contractors’ track record and any compromise in quality of the work should be clearly defined as corruption,” Pyakurel adds. The mid-term report recommended bringing a ‘project implementation law’ to solve several problems in implementing projects, including making implementation officials and the people accountable. It is essential to prepare time-bound plans for a project along with cost-effective and quality assurance measures. Undersecretary Adhikari stressed the need for projects to have an specific annual work plans which prioritize activities in the field-level. The report also said that there must be result-oriented work performance review system for project chief and staff as well as setting of dates of completion. REPUBLICA

To be or not to be: The question of fuel subsidy divides opinions

RUDRA PANGENI 
KATHMANDU, March 20, 2014 : While everyone seems to agree that providing subsidy on fuel puts a big burden on the government, the question of whether to continue with it or of how to lessen the weight while not hurting the poor and the marginalized remains divisive.

In the last decade and half, this has set a trend. The government hikes petroleum prices triggering protests from the opposition parties who disrupt the parliament and then their respective student unions and youth wings hit the streets and burn and smash property. 

Last Friday’s decision on the price hike has done the same. Students demonstrated, banda was called on Wednesday in the capital, and parliament disrupted by the opposition for a third consecutive day on Thursday before the government finally relented to mounting pressure for a roll back. 

Protestors say that it will not only send public transportation fares up but also have a cascading effect on consumer products which will affect the lower strata of population as well as the lower middle class. 

As usual, the government has a different take on it. Again, the government says it is costly to subsidize petroleum by cutting the development budget while the cost of imported fuel has increased due to increase in the price of crude oil in the international market and exchange-rate fluctuation. 

According to Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC), its total monthly losses stand at Rs 1.22 billion because of subsidy in different products even after the price hike.

The monthly losses were Rs 1.69 billion prior to Friday’s hike. The country imports petroleum products worth Rs 107 billion annually, which is more than Nepal’s exports put together. 

Speaking at an event on Saturday, Minister for Finance Ram Sharan Mahat said NOC should be free to decide the price of petroleum products in accordance to the changes in the international market.

BLANKET SUBSIDY
OR a TARGETED one

Petroleum products like Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and diesel have become essential commodities. 

However, the government’s policies are yet to define essentials and non-essentials, therefore prices are increased without considering the effect on the lives of the common people.

Talking to Republica, former Commerce Secretary Purushottam Ojha said there must be a selective approach that targets for whom to subsidize and on which products. 

“As many South Asian countries, including India, have subsidized basic fuel, Nepal too should subsidize LPG and diesel as they are essentials,” Ojha said.

Former Finance Secretary Rameshore Khanal, who is now a leader in Nepali Congress, has been strongly against subsidizing imported fuel. “Subsidy in petroleum only benefits the urban population but the government pays that by cutting the development budget meant for the rural population who can never hit the streets of the capital,” 

Khanal says, adding that the idea of subsidizing imported products is not a wise move as it only benefits petroleum exporters. Khanal further says, “It would be wiser to provide free electricity to the people instead of subsidizing imported fuel as electricity is domestically produced.” 

TAX ON PETROLEUM:
A PRESSING FACTOR IN PRICE HIKES 

The government levies 13 percent VAT on all petroleum products except kerosene and nominal customs duty on all products. Revenue is also one of the major issues that put pressure for price increments. The amount of revenue collected from NOC increased to Rs 25 billion from Rs 8 billion in the last five years.

Former Commerce Secretary Ojha says that the government can specify the amount in revenue on petroleum instead of percentage to keep control on prices, which has shown an upward trend. 

Himal Sharma, a student leader aligned to UCPN (Maoist), says the government should waive taxes on essential commodities like LPG and diesel. “LPG is already listed in essential goods, diesel should be made free from taxes as the price is directly related to transportation fares and indirectly to the price of all consumer goods,” Sharma adds. 
However, former Finance Secretary Khanal says waiving revenue would be a suicidal approach as it would cut the budget for development works. 

“A huge amount of tax must be levied on petroleum products for collecting money for hydropower development, which is the best option for us to wean away from our dependency on petroleum.”

CROSS-SUBSIDY 
Since March 9, the government has implemented a dual-pricing system for LPG by ordering the use of separately colored cylinders for commercial and household use in a bid to subsidize LPG only for households. 

However the process of making commercial entities pay full price for LPG is yet to be implemented. Subsidy for LPG is Rs 864 per cylinder. 1.5 million LPG cylinders are consumed monthly. 

Ojha says that the cross-subsidy policy in LPG will be a strategic move to downsize the burden of subsidy. 

SEVERAL STUDIES, BUT NO IMPLEMENTATION 

As many as five high-level committees, led by Top Bahadur Rayamajhi, Shankar Sharma, Yubaraj Khatiwada, Bhanu Prasad Acharya and Bhim Acharya, have investigated the fuel economy of the country to find a way to solve the problem. However, the study reports are gathering dust at NOC. 

The reports suggested bringing the private sector into the petroleum import business, taking measures to downsize the per-unit cost, and subsidizing kerosene and LPG only for a targeted poor section of the people.

Some steps were taken to implement these study reports, but without success. 
A bill was tabled at the parliament for opening up the petroleum supply business to the private sector in 2008, but it could not make it through.

WAY FORWARD 
Experts suggest that it is high time we expedited hydropower development, which can be the right move to downsize dependency on imported fossil fuel. 

They say that an ample supply of electricity can at least cut down consumption of the LPG and diesel used by factories and other commercial entities to power up their electricity generators.

Data show that LPG and diesel used for generators add up to make about half of the total petroleum consumption in the country.

Besides, it is said that a better road infrastructure can save travel time and, more importantly, increase fuel efficiency. 

Khanal suggests opting for alternative sources including expediting investment in hydropower. “We can generate hydropower of 5,000 MW within six years,” he says.
REPUBLICA 

Nepal's energy future: Too much when it rains, too little rest of the time

	Nepal's energy future: Too much when it rains, too little rest of the time
	RUDRA PANGENI KATHMANDU, March 6: It might be kind of hard to believe that in about four years’ time Nepal will go from round-the-year power cuts to days when Nepal Electricity Authority’s (NEA’s) big problem will too much energy. But that will definitely be the case as NEA projections show that power plants around the country will generate so much electricity when planned and under-construction projects come online between mid-2017 and 2019 that NEA has already started trying to come up with plans on how to deal with the surplus. In fact, according to NEA estimates, Nepal is going to have so much extra electricity supply -- for about 20 hours a day during the rainy season Nepal will generate about 1,000 MW more energy than it can use – that NEA is right now thinking about putting the signing of new deals to buy energy on hold until it can figure a way out. But no one is popping open the champagne and looking forward to days very near in the future when people in Nepal will no longer have to plan their daily schedules around the latest load-shedding routine. As always there is a big but (catch). Nepal will have an energy surplus headache during the rainy season, but that’s it – only during the rainy season. The rest of the year the not-even-close-to-enough energy situation will persist. So much so that during the ‘dry months’, NEA expects Nepal to generate only fourth of the energy it needs. Currently, load-shedding stands at 84 hours per week. While it is less during other seasons, power cut is still round-the-year. In the last few years, the pace of new power generation projects has gone up and NEA has so far signed Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) with about 120 projects with peak-generation capacity of about 2,000 MW which means that there will be surplus energy during the off-peak hours of the rainy season after July 2017. This has caused NEA officials to rethink signing new agreements with power developers fearing that energy will go wasted and NEA will incur huge losses. The last time the country had an energy surplus was when the Kaligandaki hydropower project completed in 2002. But that was only for a short time. NEA statistics say that figures of supply and demand will meet at a point in July 2017 after the connection of the 456 MW Upper Tamakoshi Hydropower Project (UTHP) to the national grid and the country will enter a new phase of surplus energy when it rains heavily. Add to that the other projects, like the Mid-Bhotekoshi (102 MW) and Rasuwagadhi (111 MW) coming into connection soon after UTHP, and Nepal will reach the day when ‘dump energy’ will reach about 1,000 MW for about 20 hours, or 20 million units, every day during the rainy season by Fiscal Year 2018 /19. Talking to Republica, NEA Spokesperson Sher Singh Bhat put the market price of the dump energy at around Rs 150 million per day. However during the dry months, power houses will only generate one-fourth of the energy when peak demand is forecast to hit 1,906 MW. "The demand forecast figures and the already signed PPAs do not allow us to sign any more PPAs with the run-of-the-river (RoR) projects until there is a reliable market and marketability of the energy to sell the surplus," Bhat says, adding that it would be costly if NEA were to decide to purchase power thereafter. The seasonal imbalance of energy generation owes a lot to the fact that the planned and under-construction projects are only run-of-the-river types, which run in full capacity during the rainy season but comes down to a trickle the rest of the year. If NEA fails to find a market for the surplus energy, some 200 projects, with a total capacity of 10,300 MW, which are under different phase of study will suffer and new energy development work will come almost to standstill. NEA´s rethinking of new PPAs will also affect the promises of political parties in their election manifestos to generate 5,000 MW of energy in the next three to five years to bail the country out of its energy crisis. Their declarations lacked a time-framed electricity generation plan. It is high time to have a comprehensive plan for producing energy that focuses on reservoir plants for balanced energy production. RESERVOIR PROJECTS Only reservoir hydropower projects can bring changes to the current imbalance but there aren’t any such projects likely to be constructed, at least not before 2020. Keshav Dhwaj Adhikari, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Energy, has pointed out that the current problem is a result of over two decades of bad or non-existent planning. "The current energy crisis is because the government kept on just expecting something from the private sector and did nothing after the 1990s." Successive governments took a backseat in energy production and expected the private sector to generate the needed energy after opening the doors to them in the 1990s. The immature private sector never chose to develop reservoir projects as they are comparatively expensive compared to RoR projects. Adhikari is of the view that the crisis won´t be resolved until the government itself makes reservoir projects on its own. The government has initiated plan for Tanahu, Nalisinggadh (400 MW) and Budhigandaki (600 MW) hydro projects. But they are not likely to come online before 2022 even if things go as planned. Speaking at the Nepal Economic Summit on last week, NEA Managing Director Arjun Kumar Karki said the load-shedding can not be eliminated even after those reservoir projects are done. With an assessment of importance of dry energy in the future, NEA has invited applications from export-oriented projects offering Rs 10.60 per unit for dry energy (from December to April) after 2020. But only five projects have applied so far. The current rate stands at Rs 8.40 for dry months and Rs 4.80 for wet energy. ENERGY TRADE WITH INDIA The leadership in the government and NEA put emphasis on the planning of importing energy to meet the demand or at least downsize the current energy cuts. The ideal way would be a Power Trade Agreement (PTA) with India to export the surplus energy during the wet season and import from them during dry months. The Nepali government put forward a proposal on signing a Memorandum of Understanding for a PTA with India in June 2010. However, India has not responded to the proposal yet. Delegates and leaders of India often reiterate that Nepal is rich in water resources and can earn by selling hydropower, but their reiteration has never been translated into reality. “The Indian side has always remained silent on our MoU proposal for years though they often repeat the same thing that the process is on and they are thinking about it,” Adhikari, the energy ministry spokesperson, says. It seems that the country will be waiting for the PTA for a long long time. The President of Independent Power Producers Association Nepal Khadga Bahadur Bisht says that no one has the answer on how to address the energy development imbalance. NEA, the government and the private sector should work hand-in-hand to find the solution, including the PTA with India, to address the current problem of seasonal imbalance and finding a market to sell energy. However, they are yet to develop a cross-border transmission line to exchange any energy. It has been years since the Muzaffarpur-Dhalkebar transmission line was initiated, but little progress has been made. ALTERNATIVE MARKET FOR DUMP ENERGY It would be wise to look for a domestic market to utilize the ‘dump power’ to save the country’s state-run power monopolist from huge losses and make it favorable for the private sector to continue electricity generation by signing PPAs with them. Adhikari suggests encouraging any type of industry that can use the dump energy. Likewise, Bisht is of the view that the country can have cold stores that consume wet energy as well as tariff differences by season to increase the consumption of dump energy.