Following a meeting last week between an International Hydropower Association (IHA) team and Prime Minister Surya Bahadur Thapa, who is also the Water Resources Minister, the governmentas announed it will adopt the IHA guidelines for hydroelectricity development in the country.

IHA is a representative organisation of hydropower development, production and distribution agencies from across the globe and the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) is a board member of the association. The IHA guidelines addressing social and environmental aspects during hydropower plant construction came after worldwide criticism of a World Commission on Dams report. NEA officials believe that adopting the IHA guidelines will help Nepal get financial assistance from multilateral agencies like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. Nepal has feasible potential to generate up to 40,000MW of power, but the national grid so far has only tapped 600MW.