--By TC Correspondent 

 

International Finance Corporation (IFC) has subscribed $ 3 Million to Nepal Water & Energy Development Company (NWEDC) for development of Upper Trishuli Hydropower project. With this, IFC has officially become a shareholder of NWEDC, states a press release from NWDEC. This amount translates into 15 per cent equity in the company NWEDC Pvt Ltd is the special purpose vehicle company established for the development and generation of 216 MW Upper Trishuli-I Hydroelectricity project.

 

The World Bank Group member IFC is one of the largest global development institutions that focus exclusively on the private sector in developing countries. 

 

IFC subscription will cover the cost to be incurred for lender’s engineer, Cumulative Impact Assessment (CIA), panel of expert along with others, the press release mentions. IFC will invest a total of 15 percent of the total equity for Upper Trishuli-I Hydropower project that will be utilised to enhance and expedite its development works, NWEDC said.

 

K-Construction, a Consortium of three Korean Companies: Korea South East Power Company (KOSEP); Daelim Industrial Company Ltd and Kyeryong Construction Industrial Company Ltd, holds 75 per cent of the equity investment. The consortium has already started injecting in equity portion, stated the press release. 

 

The Upper Trishuli-1 project is expected to complete by 2019. After completion it will generate and supply around 10 per cent of total electricity of the country. 

 

The project access road construction has been intiated and the company has already acquired private land required for developing the project. Along with that the company has leased necessary land from the government too, for the project license period. 

 

The project is making preparations to acquire Guthi land and has already signed leasehold agreement with Department of Forest for cutting and removing necessary trees from the leased government property.  

 

Presently, construction of camp facilities and access road bridge over the Mailung river are underway, a press release issued by NWEDC said on Sunday. 

 

Along with that the project has initiated process to procure and use explosive materials in the project area.  

 

The project aims to employ around 500 people during the UT-I project construction stage and will hire around 50 operations and maintenance staff after the project construction is completed. 

 

Presently the company has been working on concluding PPA, PDA and other paper work so that it could commence the project construction. 

 

Established in 1956, IFC is the largest multilateral source of loan and equity financing for private sector projects in the developing world.