By the end of the Panchayat, i.e. by 2047, the total electricity production in the country was around 2025 MW. Apart from the main cities, many rural areas depended on the light of small lamps. The government alone did not have the financial capacity to generate electricity.

Therefore, after the change of 2046, the Congress-led government formed in 2048 had decided on a strategy to attract private sector investment in electricity projects. The government had brought the Privatization Act to increase investment in electricity. In the same vein, a new hydropower development policy was brought in 2048. Based on this, the Electricity Act 2049 was brought. The Electricity Regulations 2050 were also made. But the private sector could not be attracted. Even though Norway and the US invested in the Khimti and Bhotekoshi hydropower projects, domestic investors could not be attracted.

The government did not believe that the domestic private sector could invest in electricity development. Can the private sector also generate electricity? The government itself was asking the question. Krishna Prasad Bhandari, a promoter of the hydropower sector, narrates an incident from nearly 30 years ago - 'Initially, the then Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala had questioned whether the private sector could also build power projects. After much persuasion, he was 'convinced'. He had started a PPA of up to 5 megawatts.'

Shailaja Acharya, who became the Minister of Water Resources on 2055 Baisakh 2, took an important decision to bring in domestic private investment during her eight-and-a-half-month tenure. Shailaja had decided to lay the foundation for the private power generation sector, which has seen billions of investment now.

Investors say that the result is that the electricity produced by the private sector is now spread across the country. Shailaja had put forward the slogan 'Small is beautiful' on the day she became a minister. To implement that slogan in practice, she decided that the Nepal Electricity Authority would immediately purchase electricity up to 1 megawatt generated from the private sector. Similarly, by 2003, i.e. 059 Poush, she decided to purchase 50 megawatts of electricity from power projects ranging from 1 to 10 megawatts. The government expected the private sector to be excited and invest in power generation. According to Bhandari, the process of obtaining licenses for power projects also increased after that.

As the chairperson of the Authority, Shailaja tried to stop the misuse of the Authority's assets. She decided that the Authority would run a special program to link rural electrification with irrigation and operate about 9,000 tubewells and 40 small tubewells. She decided to make the basis for the tender evaluation and detailed evaluation of the selection of consultants transparent for all programs to be conducted through tenders. Her efforts to reduce unnecessary expenses by the Authority were highly appreciated at that time.

The decision to return the Authority's vehicles if they were used by other people was very much in the news at that time. At that time, there was widespread misuse of the Authority's vehicles and high-level political and administrative figures in the country misused the vehicles. The belief that 'if you don't have a vehicle, go to the Authority' had developed. After Minister Shailaja decided to return the vehicles used without authorization, she embarrassed many ministers, MPs and political leaders. Because at that time they used the Authority's vehicles. The Authority's meeting held under her chairmanship rejected the proposal to purchase vehicles for officials of the tenth level and above. She had formed a committee to review the electricity tariff to provide relief to consumers.

Widespread misuse of the Authority's vehicles

At that time, the Authority was not in a position to determine how many of its vehicles it had and who was driving them. In the meeting chaired by Shailaja, NEA officials presented details of 13 vehicles used by ministers, MPs and political figures. The NEA itself was unaware of the other vehicles.

NEA Administration Department Chief Premraj Gautam had told Kantipur, ‘It is not in our hands to return the vehicles. The Ministry of Water Resources will ask the Home Ministry to seize them through traffic.’ The MPs had also submitted bills for the NEA’s transportation, maintenance and fuel expenses. In the fiscal year 052/053, Rs 12 million was paid to the Oil Corporation for fuel. Bal Kumar Shrestha, Chairman of the NEA Welfare Council, had informed that NEA has never been interested in its vehicles and has ignored who has used which vehicle.

In a conversation with Kantipur, NEA Employees’ Association General Secretary Bishwanath Sharma had informed that ministers, MPs and high-level employees have taken 15 vehicles in the last few months alone. He had driven the NEA vehicle with former Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, former Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee Hridayesh Tripathi, former ministers and ministers of state Khowari Roy, Shantishamsher Rana, Hem Bahadur Malla, Sarvendranath Shukla, Shivraj Subedi, and others.

The five vehicles that former Water Resources Minister Pashupati Shamsher Rana had taken for the secretariat when he was a minister were not returned. NEA employees had informed that Tripathi, the former Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, was renting out his private vehicle purchased under customs facilities to the Kaligandaki project under the NEA and was taking 70,000 rupees per month. Tripathi, however, had used the NEA's Pajero vehicle number 948 at that time. The situation was such that the Chairman of the NEA Welfare Council, Shrestha, had informed that they were unable to stop the extreme misuse of NEA vehicles.