Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) planted trees on Tuesday through its offices across the country on the occasion of its 39th anniversary.

Deepak Khadka, Minister of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation and Chairman of the Board of Directors of NEA, started the program planting saplings in the premises of the department.

In the program, Minister Khadka said that tree planting is an important program to reduce the damage caused by the construction of hydropower projects and transmission lines in the forest area.

Mentioning that the government has set a target of 28,000 megawatts of electricity generation and a target for the export of electricity that is consumed internally, Minister Khadka said that he will be active in doing things such as amending laws to remove the current obstacles in hydropower construction to meet the target.

Managing Director Ghising said that the NEA itself has also started planting trees to give a message that we are not only cutting trees but also planting trees to compensate for the trees that are cut in the forest area after taking approval for the construction of hydropower and transmission line projects.

Ghising said that the clean energy produced by the hydropower projects of Nepal is being consumed within the country and the surplus is being exported to the neighboring countries.

The employees working in the NEA's regional and divisional offices under distribution and customer service, distribution centers/sub-centers, grid offices under transmission services, substation offices, electricity generators production services have planted trees in their office premises and other suitable places. The offices have planted fruits and other types of plants according to the climate and soil of their respective areas.

The trees are planted to convey the message that t tree saplings are also protected. During the construction of hydropower, transmission and distribution projects, trees are cut down.

Since last year, the NEA has started a tree planting program through its offices a

cross the country on 15th of July.

The staff working in the head office of the authority and the offices within the Kathmandu valley, which do not have a place to plant trees, have planted saplings in the premises of the training management department at Kharipati in Bhaktapur.

Electricity Regulatory Commission Chairman Ram Prasad Dhital, Director General of Electricity Development Department Jivach Mandal, NEA’s Board Members Kapil Acharya and Ratan Bahadur Iyer, Managing Director Kulman Ghising and senior employees of NEA have planted saplings. More than 100 saplings of various species like Amba, Mango, Orange, Haluvaveda, Velpatra etc. have been planted.