Kathmandu. Minister for Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation Biraj Bhakta Shrestha and the Confederation of Nepalese Industries (CNI) held a meeting today.

A team led by CNI President Birendra Raj Pandey on Monday held discussions on the development of energy sector.

On the occasion, Chairman Pandey stressed on the need of adopting a policy to increase electricity consumption. He suggested implementing the policy of allowing the industries to generate required energy and broadcast it by charging wheeling charge and to adopt a policy to allow the private sector for internal and international trade of electricity.

He urged the government to immediately sign Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with all the projects that have completed the survey with the approval of the government and are yet to sign power purchase agreement, to adopt a policy to increase the internal consumption of electricity and to make arrangements to replace fossil fuel-based industries with electricity-based equipment. He also stressed the need of paying attention to alternative energy sources.

On the occasion, Minister Shrestha pledged to work together with the private sector for the overall development of energy sector. He said the government was doing homework on ways to increase the domestic consumption along with the export of electricity.

According to him, the government has given high priority to the strategy of increasing the consumption of reservoirs, renewable energy and electricity. He said that the energy sector is expecting clear suggestions from the private sector on how to increase its contribution to the GDP.