"People will get huge benefit from this project and so do the country’s economy," Kush Kumar Joshi, president of the NPBCL, said at an interaction program. He, however, couldn’t elaborate how the company intends to repay the people investing in the project.
Officials of Ministry of Physical Planning and Transport Management said the company, which aims to generate investment from public, should have a clear plan on how it intends to repay them. "The company should have a convincing plan to repay the public and institutional investors," said a ministry official.
The company, which aims to collect investment from around 264,000 people, has not developed any framework on how the benefits will be shared among promoters of the company and other investors. "The modality of sharing benefits between promoters and public investors is yet to be decided," Joshi said.
The project, which is estimated to cost INR 20bn (USD 371M), will connect Kathmandu with Hetauda with a four-lane road.
The government officials have said the estimated cost is too low and funding sources are not clearly demonstrated in the detailed project report (DPR) that the NPBCL submitted in November 2012.
However, officials of NPBCL claimed that cost estimation was well calculated and funding source is clear as many institutions and people have already expressed commitments to invest in the project.
"The success of the project depends on people’s participation and collective work of local people, domestic contractors, professional institutions and banking sector of the country," Joshi said.
The project, which is targeted to be completed within four years, will help the country save INR 22bn (USD 408.5M) a year by reducing fuel imports, argue officials of the company.
"Our target is to make people able to travel from Kathmandu to Hetauda and vice versa in 45 minutes," Lal Krishna KC, vice president of the company, said.
