Preparations are underway to officially implement the popular American grant project Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) from the upcoming month of August.
Nepal and America are preparing to sign the agreement to implement the MCC by the last week of August.
With the signing, the five-year period of the MCC operation will officially begin.
High-ranking American officials will visit Nepal before and after the signing of the ceremony.
Khadga Bahadur Bista, Executive Director of MCA Nepal, said the US and Nepal will sign the agreement to officially start the implementation of the MCC project.
Five years ago, the MoU of the MCC Compact was signed between Nepal and America.
The MCC, which has been mired in controversy for a long time, is about to be implemented after 18 months of approval by the Nepali Parliament.
Before the implementation of the MCC project, US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, Donald Lu, will visit Nepal.
According to a highly-placed official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Assistant Secretary of State Lu is coming to Nepal in the second week of July. This is going to be Lu's third visit to Nepal.
Lu visited Nepal for two days in the last week of July last year. He came to Kathmandu after the Nepal government decided not to implement the State Partnership Program.
Prior to that, he visited Nepal in the second week of November 2021. At that time MCC was pending in the Parliament.
With the MCC project set in motion, its Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Alice P. Albright is making preparations to visit Nepal in September, an official of MCA Nepal said.
"There is no program to make the signing ceremony grand. A formal program will be organized to announce that the MCC has entered the implementation phase," said the official.
MCC chief Albright's visit to Nepal which will take place following the signing ceremony is viewed as significant.
On September 9, 2021, MCC Vice President of Compact Operations Fatema Z. Sumar visited Nepal and pressured the Nepali leaders to approve the MCC from the Parliament as soon as possible.
The US has set a condition that the MCC project should be completed within five years of its implementation.
If the MCC project is not completed on time as agreed, the entire cost will have to be borne by the Government of Nepal.
On the other hand, according to the MCC agreement, the US will provide a subsidy of 500 million US dollars to Nepal, i.e. about 60 billion Nepali rupees.
Nepal also has an agreement to invest 130 million US dollars, i.e. about Rs 17 billion for the MCC project.
But a member of the MCA board informed Nepalkhabar that now Nepal has to invest more than that.
Nepal has had to make an additional investment in the cross-border transmission line connecting Sunauli to Gorakhpur in India.
Sources say that the MCC has asked Nepal to bear this cost as the cost of the project has increased.
But MCA Nepal's Executive Director Bista says that since Nepal has to build this section as soon as possible, Nepal will have to spend the money as per the plan of the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA).
The MCC project will construct a 315 km long transmission line of 400 KV capacity and three sub-stations.
Similarly, 854 towers will be built in it. This transmission line will stretch from Hetauda in Makwanpur to Butwal via Lapsiphedi in Kathmandu.
The transmission line proposed under the MCC will be connected to the cross-border transmission line from Butwal to Gorakhpur, India, which will be built by a joint investment of Nepal and India.
Similarly, under the MCC, 77 km of road will be constructed with state-of-the-art technology in the Dang section of the East-West Highway.
More than two billion rupees have been spent on the MCC project so far. MCA Nepal has spent in areas such as detailed design, feasibility study, environmental impact assessment (EIA), employee salary, office management, equipment, and vehicle procurement.
For the MCC project which connects 10 districts, the land acquisition work has not yet been completed.
