By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS
Kathmandu : Repeatedly blocked by Nepal’s political parties, Indian companies are now trying a different tack to enter the kingdom’s potentially lucrative hydropower sector by forming joint ventures with Nepali counterparts.
One of the most high-profile ventures is by Karnataka’s GMR Group that despite being approved as the best bidder for two new hydropower projects by a committee was put on hold due to Nepal’s unstable political environment. The committee was set up by the Nepal government to assess the contending companies.
Finally, with the parliamentary committee for water resources instructing the government not to award more than one project at a time to any foreign investor, GMR this month entered into an alliance with the Kathmandu-based Himtal Hydropower Pvt. Ltd., buying 80 percent stake in the joint venture.
GMR is not the only Indian company to come up with the clever idea. Of the 13 other Indian companies that were also in the fray, like Reliance, others have also caught on.
Noida-based Bhilwara Energy Ltd., among the contenders for hydel projects, is forming a joint venture with Nepal’s Triveni Group.
Triveni holds the licence for developing the 20-MW Balefi in northern Sindhupalchowk district as well as the 57-MW Likhu-4 between Ramechhap and Okhaldhunga districts. The projects till last year were out of bounds for investors because of the Maoist insurgency.
Triveni told IANS that it intended to execute the two projects simultaneously and a survey had already started.
Asked if the joint venture could run into obstruction due to the strong distrust of foreign investors in the hydropower sector shown so far by the major political parties, the group said it did not foresee any problem since the projects would be executed in collaboration with a Nepali partner.
Bhilwara had eyed the much-coveted Upper Karnali hydropower project but did not make it to the shortlist of nine companies selected by the official team headed by former finance secretary Bhanuprasad Acharya.
A consultancy that is part of the Bhilwara Group, the Indo-Canadian Consultancy Services, did a feasibility study on four potential projects in Nepal.
According to media reports, India’s Everest Energy and Athena Energy are also exploring the feasibility of going into partnership with Nepali companies.
Recently, Nepal’s government hiked hydropower project licence fees in a bid to discourage non-serious companies who had acquired a licence but were sitting on it without beginning work.
The hike as well as the sizeable investment needed to develop a big hydel project makes it all the more attractive for Nepali firms to tie up with Indian companies.