Kathmandu. Similarly, Minister for Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation Deepak Khadka stressed the need to legally put an end to the tendency of obstructing the country’s development and construction, filing cases under small pretexts and taking stay orders. According to him, anti-development and anti-national activities have not settled the issue for a long time, making it impossible to start big development projects, which the government is committed to resolving legally.

Speaking at a programme organized at the Ministry of Energy on sunday on the eve of the ‘Sudurpaschim State Investment and Development Conference’ to be held in Dhangadhi on November 15 and 25, Minister Khadka said that the government was serious about creating an environment for investment in the energy sector. “We are in the law-making stage after the promulgation of the constitution, the pace at which the laws should have been framed has not been completed yet,” he said, adding that the government has given high priority to policy reforms for the development of the energy sector.

Minister Khadka said it was a positive aspect for all the provinces to show interest in empowering their provinces after the country went into federalism. He said the government has moved ahead in the economic development of the country by taking the private sector along. ’

Energy Minister Khadka has stressed the need for coordination between the laws made between the federal and provincial governments to advance development works. Stating that there was a problem of forest and land acquisition during the construction of hydropower, he said coordination among the three levels of government was necessary to solve it.

“The problems seen in the course of development works should be resolved legally,” he clarified. According to him, the government is working to build a prosperous Nepal by making maximum use of the resources available in the country and the Ministry is preparing to move ahead by taking many policy decisions in the energy sector.

According to him, arrangements are being made for the construction of transmission lines and purchase and sale of electricity to the private sector along with production for the development of the power sector. He said that the government was working aggressively on the policy level.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister of Sudurpaschim Province Kamal Bahadur Shah said that the investment conference has been organized for the development and prosperity of the state and urged everyone to join the conference. “The investment summit is not limited to investment but is a historic effort to take the province towards employment and productive development, which requires the support of the central government to make it successful,” he said. ’

Chief Secretary of Sudurpaschim Province. Kamal Pokharel said that the conference has been organized to make the province prosperous through proper use of resources. The two-day conference will be held at The City Hall in Dhangadhi along with the inaugural session as well as various meetings and agreements on the possibilities of development construction and investment.

According to Director General of the Department of Power Development, Jeevchha Mandal, 108 hydropower projects with a capacity of 8,241 MW are currently progressing in some phase or the other in the far-western state. Energy companies participating in the discussion presented transmission lines, land acquisition and forest-related hurdles as major challenges.