Minister of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation Barsha Man Pun said that the government has already made necessary arraignments to push the construction of Budhigandaki Hydropower project.

Addressing the meeting of stake holders, minister Pun said that the government will settle the issue of land accusation and compensation within this fiscal year.

Attended by representatives from Ministry, affected people of project site of Dhading and elected representatives, the stake holders have expressed their support to carry out the construction of the project in earlier time.

Discussing on Draft Report on Rehabilitation and Relocation of Budhigandaki Hydropower Project, all the stake holders stressed the need to implement the project as soon as possible.

Former Prime Minister Dr. Baburam Bhattarai, former minister Rajendra Pandey, Kamala Panta, former chief whip of Nepali Congress Chinkazi Shrestha and large number of representatives from political parties and affected population also spoke about the project.

“Although the government has several options before the government, we want to build Budhigandaki as a multipurpose project,” said Minister Pun.

Minister Pun said that all the issue related to land acquisitions and distribution of compensation will be completed in coming years.

Former Prime Minister Dr. Baburam Bhattarai expressed his commitment to fully support for implementations of the project. He said that there need to give tax rebate to the money given as compensation. Former Prime Minister Bhattarai.

Former chief whip of Nepali Congress Chinkazi Shrestha said that the time has come to implement. “Delaying the construction will ruin it.”

Former minister and NCP leader Rajendra Pandey expressed the view that the project need to implement as soon as possible.

Chaired by secretary of Ministry Anup Kumar Upadhyaya, environmentalist Saroj Adhikary presented his paper on rehabilitation and relocation of affected people.

With a capacity of 1200 MW, the project displaced 3560 houses will physically displaced and 4536 households economically.

The project has already distributed more than Rs.18 billion as compensation to the displaced population.