Nepal should take to power generation in big way: Nitin Gadkari

NEW DELHI: BJP President Nitin Gadkari today asked Nepal to exploit its potential in producing power, which can be sold to India also, to tackle poverty.

"You can eradicate poverty by focusing on power generation in your country... the second sector which can help you in generating employment is tourism," he said here.

The BJP President was addressing a meeting on India-Nepal relations.

He said as per estimates, Nepal had a potential of developing 80,000 MW of hydro-electric power.

"There is a power shortage in India.... You can issue global tenders for setting up these plants," Gadkari said.

The BJP chief said the Nepalese leadership should adopt a development-oriented approach and try to complete projects in time as every year due to delays like those in India, the project cost goes up.

"Today there is discussion everywhere (in India) that they are not taking out minerals from the mines... the Government is cancelling the licenses," he said.

Asking Nepalase politicians to find out ways to tackle their development issues, Gadkari said his party was preparing a document Vision 2025 under which they have taken up all the issues facing the people and the country to find solutions for them.

At the meeting, some Nepalese officials suggested that the talks over water resources between the two countries have not been satisfactory.