Minister of Energy, Water Resources, and Irrigation Pampha Bhusal today said the government would cancel the licence of those electricity developers who had reached power purchase agreement and failed to execute construction work.

The government is ready to take necessary steps to encourage actual promoters of hydropower, said the minister while addressing a workshop with the theme of Cross Border Energy Trade with Focus on Open Access and Transmission Pricing' organised here by the Society of Economic Journalists Nepal.

"Our first priority is to increase and consume energy produced within the country, make electricity consumption per person production comparable with the regional and international level and increase economic production," she said.

According to the minister, there is no alternative to exporting surplus electricity to the international market. Homework has been done to resume a PPA with the run-of-river hydropower projects.

Nepal has been exporting around 365 megawatts electricity from six projects to India and bringing in foreign currencies from the sales, she informed.

Similarly, efforts were under way at political and diplomatic levels to reach agreement for additional electricity sale.

Vice-chairperson of National Planning Commission Bishwanath Paudel stressed the need to slash cost on the production, transmission and distribution of electricity to increase its domestic consumption and exports. For this, participation of private sector should be encouraged, he said.

Secretary at the ministry Sushil Chandra Tiwari and secretary at the Water and Energy Commission Secretariat Dinesh Ghimire underscored the need to produce and expand electricity lines as much as possible to support the country's economy.

Similarly, Managing Director of Nepal Electricity Authority Kulman Ghising emphasised increasing the use of electric vehicles and domestic consumption of power.