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The price of gold has dropped by Rs 1, 000 per tola in the domestic market on Wednesday. According to the Federation of Nepal Gold and Silver Dealers’ Association, the yellow bullion is being traded at Rs 101, 500 per tola today. The yellow metal was traded at Rs 102, 500 per tola on Tuesday. Meanwhile, tejabi gold is being traded at Rs 101, 000 per tola. Similarly, the price of silver has dropped by Rs 40 and is being traded at Rs 1,225 per tola today.

The Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) gained 14.41 points to close at 1,952.66 points on Tuesday. Similarly, the sensitive index surged by 1.53 points to close at 370. 24 points. A total of 4,059,149 unit shares of 261 companies were traded for Rs 1. 20 billion. Meanwhile, Shuvam Power Limited was the top gainer today, with its price surging by 10. 00 percent. CYC Nepal Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha Limited was the top loser as its price fell by 5.18 percent. At the end of the day, total market capitalization stood at Rs 2. 82 trillion.

The Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has estimated that the country needs to invest as much as $4bn by 2030 to transform the existing transmission infrastructure. In a presentation at a program last week, NEA Managing Director Kul Man Ghising said an investment of $3.95bn will be required to complete the NEA’s plan of transforming the existing transmission infrastructure which has remained poor and unreliable. According to him, it will require $2.51bn for the planned and ongoing transmission line projects within the Kathmandu Valley and outside. An additional $1.44bn will be required for constructing the substations. NEA is currently developing and has planned to develop 400kV, 220kV, 132kV, and 66kV transmission lines and substations. Even though load shedding in the country officially ended in May 2019, the reliability of the power supply has been a major concern for industrial and general consumers. The NEA leadership has time and again insisted that the next major focus would be to improve the transmission and distribution infrastructure of power supply. NEA has been forced to cut power industries based in the Birgunj area because of failure to supply power there due to poor transmission infrastructure. Nepal has been importing electricity from India during the dry season but it has not been able to deliver the imported power from India to Birgunj where industries are facing daily power cuts. One of the main reasons behind the failure to deliver the imported power to the area is poor transmission infrastructure. “Existing transmission line cannot carry much power,” said an NEA official. “So, we have failed to deliver power from Dhalkebar to Birgunj.” Nepal has been importing power through the 400kV Dhalkebar-Muzaffarpur Cross Border Transmission Line from the Indian market. While domestic transmission infrastructure has remained poor, the cross-border transmission infrastructure between Nepal and India is also not efficient. For example, the 132kV Raxaul-Parwanipur Cross Border Transmission Line can transmit only 80MW of electricity. The 33kV Raxual-Birgunj Transmission Line Project can carry only 12MW electricity. “We have requested the Bihar State government for the supply of additional 90MW of electricity through improvement in cross border power lines,” said the NEA official. Considering the poor state of cross-border power lines, Nepal and India agreed to upgrade these transmission lines. There are a dozen cross-border power lines between Nepal and India. Except for Dhalkebar-Muzaffarpur, the capacity of other power lines range between 33kV to 132kV, according to the NEA. So improving domestic and cross-border electricity lines between Nepal and India has emerged as a major priority for the government-owned power utility to ensure the reliability of the power supply. NEA officials say improving the quality of power supply is important to promote the use of electric vehicles and electric cooktops in the country as well.

It's been over three and half decades since the government began construction of the Babai Irrigation Project, one of the national pride projects, which has achieved only 65 percent of the physical progress so far. The development of the Babai Irrigation Project commenced in the fiscal year 1988/89 and the completion deadline has been set to FY 2025/26. Given the current pace of the construction, it is unlikely that the project would be completed in the next three and half years. The project has to complete 35.76 percent of the remaining work by that time to meet the construction deadline. However, project officials say that there is a challenge in completing the remaining work during that period. The physical progress of the project in mid-July was 62.23 percent. And, only 2.01 percent of additional physical progress has been achieved in the first six months of this fiscal year. The project officials admit this progress is not satisfactory. In order to complete the construction of the project within the specified deadline, physical progress should be made at the rate of 3 percent quarterly, 6 percent semi-annually and 12 percent annually. However, the report of the project has confirmed that work has not been done accordingly. Now, project officials say there is no option but to extend the deadline. Although the construction started in FY 1988/89, the funding was inadequate at the beginning. Later, in FY 2012/13, Babai Irrigation was given the status of a 'national pride project', and after this, a larger budget was allocated for the project. However, the construction of the project was again affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and the delay by the contractor. Ramakrishna Ghorasaini, Information Officer of the project, said that it is difficult to complete the construction within the stipulated timeframe. "While the construction of the project was going smoothly, the pandemic stalled the works for almost two years," he said, adding, "Last year, the contractors did not work citing the rise in the price of construction materials." The project was launched by the government with the aim of providing irrigation facilities to around 36,000 hectares of arable land in the Bardia district. The total cost of the project is estimated at Rs18.96bn, which will be invested by the government. So far, Rs11.63bn has been spent on the project. Initially, the estimated cost of the project was Rs2bn which has gone up with the delay in the construction with each passing year.