Environmental research

Kathmandu is the second most polluted city in the entire world after Mexico City. Thus clean air is what all the Kathmanduties dreamt of. In order to decrease the level of pollution, the government has put on ban on Vikram Tempo and allowed zero emission 3 wheeler Electric Vehicle to ply on the streets of Kathmandu. This initiative is again slowed down as the HMG/N ban on registration of new 3 wheelers of any kind whatsoever due to Kathmandu s limited road carrying capacity. Since such capacity is limited, the only means to reduce vehicular emission in Kathmandu is by introduction of new zero-emission alternatives and replacement of the 20 years old vehicles already operating in the valley, which create far more than their share of pollution. Since Nepal has a zero emission hydro power electricity supply which will present 1.5 GW per annum of off-peak surplus electricity in the near future, the use of EV would move Nepal towards further energy sufficiency, reduce pollution and preserve precious foreign currency now used to import non-renewable heavily-adulterated polluting fuels from India and generate additional and badly needed revenue for HMG/ N via Nepal Electricity Authority. Similarly the productivity of the country as a whole lost to human respiratory illness is significant. Thus the project aimed to operate three-electro buses for public hauling and acquire financial and technical data to evaluate the electro bus technology. The project also aimed to disseminate the findings to all the stakeholders and would serve the basis for policy formulation in order to involve private entrepreneurs for wide scale replication.

Nepal