When NEA is constructing 600 MW Budigandaki, why not pull more courage and go for more lucrative 4,000 MW Upper Karnali with government support and back up? Preliminary studies and environment assessment reports have shown that cost and environmental impact will be similar in both projects. Moreover, with construction of 3 km tunnel, entire capacity of 4,000 megawatt can be harvested.
It is a common complain of NEA engineers that they have to develop projects that are expensive to build and operate. There should definitely be some hidden conspiracies behind awarding more lucrative projects to Indians without proper national consensus while NEA is on the verge of collapse.