Stakeholders have emphasized that the electricity bill should be brought in order to protect private sector investment. Stakeholders said this while speaking at an interaction program on 'Proposed Electricity Bill 2080 and Protection of Investment' organized by Nepal Infrastructure Journalists Society on Wednesday.

In the program, former Energy Secretary of the Government of Nepal, Anup Kumar Upadhyay said that the existing Electricity Act 2049 is more private sector friendly than the Electricity Bill currently under consideration in the Parliament. "The current law has brought the development of electricity to the current state by providing various facilities to the private sector," he said, "this law has a solution to all problems, there is a problem with its implementation."

When competing in the electricity sector Ramprasad Dhital, Chairman of the Electricity Regulatory Commission, said that priority criteria should be set. He said that there should be provision of non-discriminatory open access to the private sector.

Jivach Mandal, joint secretary of the Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation, says that investment will not come unless there is a policy arrangement to protect the investment of the private sector. He said that till now Nepal is not technically free from load shedding, he said that for this, 30 percent "spinning electricity should be reabsorbed". He said that since the private sector has made a huge contribution to Nepal's energy sector, the protection of the investment made by the private sector is indispensable. In the

program, the former governor of Rashtra Bank, Dipendra Bahadur Chhetri, said that the bill should also cover the issue of climate change affecting Nepal's hydropower projects recently.

Economist Gobind Nepal emphasized that the hydropower project should be built at a high capacity and should be progressed in such a way as to give returns to its 6.5 million investors .

Former executive director of Nepal Rastra Bank Nar Bahadur Thapa said that the limit of 10 percent of the total banking investment in the energy sector should be increased to 15 percent. He is of the opinion that this will help to increase investment in the goal of energy development taken by the government.

Former Chief Executive Officer of the Investment Board, Radhesh Pant, said that even though Jalas has built a hydropower project that will run for 100 to 150 years, the government should make laws keeping in mind that this is the infrastructure of the state. "Hydropower projects are not of the private sector, they should be considered as infrastructure of the state," he said.

Ganesh Karki, Chairman of Independent Energy Producers Association, Nepal (IPAN), said that if the electricity bill, which is currently in the parliament, is passed, it will completely affect the investment in the energy sector. "The government's target of producing 28,500 megawatts of electricity in 10 years can be met by the private sector," he said, "but if the government passes the Electricity Bill 2080 as it is, there will be no investment in this sector." At the

event, Bhishma Pandit, Upstream Operational Officer of the International Finance Corporation's (IFC) Asia Efra team, presented a working paper. He said that the law established the monopoly of government bodies. 

Vice President of IPAN, Uttam Vlon Lama, while presenting the working paper, said that the domestic private sector should establish non-discriminatory open market access to electricity. He said that the government, which has set a target of 28,500 megawatts of production in 10 years, should not create new laws to encroach on the private sector.

Deputy Secretary General of IPAN Prakash Dulal said that the government has not been able to provide as many facilities and concessions to the private sector of Nepal as foreign investors. He said that if the proposed electricity bill is passed, there will be problems in the energy sector as well as in cooperatives. Answering questions raised by experts and private sector energy entrepreneurs in the