Rastriya Swatantra Party MP Deepak Kumar Sah Presents Three-Point Demand to the Government

June 16, Kathmandu – Deepak Kumar Sah, MP from the Rastriya Swatantra Party, described this year’s budget as a document prepared with a focus on necessity and sustainable development. Speaking at the House of Representatives meeting on Tuesday, he stated that the budget transcends a narrow mindset of allocating funds solely to one’s electoral area for establishing order and the grand campaign of nation-building, instead adopting a broader vision aimed at increasing overall national production.

However, Sah emphasized that despite improvements in policy and budgeting, the realities on the ground remain unchanged. As an example, he cited the nationally significant Hetauda-Dhalkebar-Duhabi 400 kV transmission line project. This strategic project, jointly invested in by the Government of Nepal and the Electricity Authority, has seen most of its work completed, with only stringing of cables remaining on 18 towers. Despite this progress, the project is currently stalled because approval for tree-cutting in approximately 12 kilometers of forest area is still pending.

Drawing attention to this issue, Sah recalled point number 48 of the government’s 100-point agenda for administrative reform, which set a target to complete this within 100 days. However, more than 785 days have passed since the submission of the revised initial environmental assessment report, and the final approval for tree-felling has yet to be granted. He described this delay as an extreme case of administrative negligence, attributing it to employee absenteeism and prolonged delays due to requests for additional consultations, leading to files being held up on desks for years. This inefficiency causes the country an annual direct economic loss of approximately 400 million NPR.

In this context, Sah presented three demands to the government. First: Immediately conclude the tree-cutting approval process for the Hetauda-Dhalkebar-Duhabi transmission line without any further excuses. Second: Conduct an impartial investigation into the primary reasons behind the 785-day delay in this national priority file and legally hold the responsible officials accountable. Third: Implement a ‘single-point approval system with a fixed timeline’ to resolve such administrative bottlenecks encountered in national pride projects. Additionally, he urged adopting good exemplary practices from elsewhere.

He highlighted that in India, forest clearances for nationally important transmission lines, roads, and railway projects are integrated into an online system, wherein if concerned bodies fail to make decisions within the specified timeframe, the issue is automatically escalated to higher authorities. Emphasizing the need for a results-oriented rather than a process-oriented administration going forward, Sah concluded, “Budget preparation alone is not enough; effective implementation is the critical link.”