Nepal Electricity Authority today withdrew its decision to upgrade Upper Trishuli 3A hydropower project. On 31 May NEA board had decided to upgrade the 60 MW project in Nuwakot/Rasuwa to 90 MW as proposed by the project's Chinese contractor China Gezhouba Group. The company had been lobbying for upgrading the project since 2010 which would have pushed the project back by three years and increase require additional investment of rupees four billion.
Although the project construction began two years ago only 30 per cent of the project has completed. China Gezhouba had clinched the contract for the run-of-the-river type project in 2010 at a cost of USD 89.18 million to complete the project by May 2014.
Employee unions at NEA had demanded the board to revoke its decision citing the decision goes against the Public Procurement Act that states project cost cannot be increased by more than 10 per cent.