After almost ten months, the government has cancelled the decision to scrap the contract awarded to China’s Gezhouba Group for the construction of Budhi Gandaki Hydropower Project and handed over again to Chinese company as its election promises.

A meeting of the Council of Ministers held in Singhadarbar decided to reward the construction contract of the 1,200 MW national pride project to Chinese Company. Earlier election government led by Nepali Congress scrapped claiming that the decision was as per the direction by parliamentary committee.

During the election campaigns, Prime Minister Oli pleaded to revive the agreement if they were elected to the power.

The Pushpa Kamal Dahal led government had handed over the Budhigandaki project to the Gezhouba Water & Power (Group) Co Ltd (CGGC) company. The then Minister for Energy Janardan Sharma had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on June 4 in that regard.

As per a study carried out by a French company — Tractebel Engineering — the cost of developing the 1,200-megawatt project is expected to be around Rs 260 billion.