The survey permits issued by the Department of Power Development for all projects, including hydropower and solar energy, have been stopped. The department has not issued new survey permits since Baisakh. On 3 Baisakh 2083, Minister for Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation Biraj Bhakta Shrestha had directed the Department of Power Development to prepare a complete list of all survey and construction permits and make them public within 60 days. He had also said that new survey permits should be issued only after a review. Since then, new survey permits have been stopped.

Energy Minister Shrestha has asked the department to make public a list of projects that have not complied with the rules, including the date of issuance of permits, milestones as per the agreement, milestone attainment/progress status. He has also directed the department to issue a 'cure notice' to the licensing entity that does not comply with the prevailing law. Shrestha has also instructed the department to issue new survey permits only after a review of the matter. Therefore, although applications for survey permits are being accepted, no new ones have been issued, said Badri Kuinkel, the department's information officer. 

‘We are taking new survey applications, but no new permits have been issued by the department,’ he said. Kuinkel said that work is underway to prepare a complete list of survey and construction permits along with progress details as per the ministry’s instructions.

According to the department, as of 4 Jestha, 235 hydropower projects of 7,706.73 MW, larger than 1 MW, have applied for survey permits. 52 hydropower projects of 43.75 MW, smaller than 1 MW, have also applied for permits. 17 companies of 199.70 MW have applied for solar energy. 1 project of 1 MW has applied for wind energy. 

Ganesh Karki, president of the Independent Power Producers Association of Nepal (IPPAN), said that survey permits are being issued but there is a problem in not signing a power purchase agreement (PPA) and that this should be resolved. ‘Licenses are being issued but PPAs are not being signed. If this continues, a situation will arise in which many promoters will drown,’ he said. 

The NEA has stated that 835.5 MW of PPAs for 56 solar projects and 11,988 MW of PPAs for 547 hydropower projects have been completed by the first week of Jestha. The NEA has stated that 124.5 MW of PPAs for 7 solar projects are yet to be completed. In the hydropower sector, 126 projects with connection agreements (7,617.45 MW) and 138 projects without connection agreements (8,134.16 MW) have yet to be completed, and 15,751 MW of PPAs for 264 projects are yet to be completed.

Karki said that licenses should be issued only after the PPAs of projects that have already been issued licenses are completed. He said that projects that have not been able to start construction due to government, forest or other reasons and those that have not received licenses and are not working should be separated and worked on separately.

The department has also made public a publicly accessible ‘Permit Performance Dashboard’. The dashboard includes details of project-specific milestone progress, compliance status and action taken. IPPAN General Secretary Balram Khatiwada said that while the PPA is being suspended, the survey license has also been suspended for a while. "Since the PPA is being suspended, the government will issue a new survey license only after studying it, it has been suspended for the time being," he said. "They have applied for the survey license by paying the money. If it is suspended permanently, there will be a problem."