Minister for Energy Barsha Man Pun has announced that the government is slashing the electricity tariff for domestic use meant to encourage people for more domestic consumption of energy.

At a seminar on promotion of electric oven organized here Friday, review in existing power tariff is proposed with the tariff determination commission and new tariff would be fixed to increase the consumption of power as the power generation in country was increasing for the coming fiscal year. "In order to reduce the dependency on traditional fuel and LP gas for cooking, grant will be given for 10,000 electric ovens this year and 100 thousand ovens next year to promote the electric ovens for increasing internal consumption and it would be increased gradually," Minister Pun said.

On the occasion, Minister Pun argued that the electricity can be exported to India and other neighbouring countries if it is surplus in the domestic market. But, he added that domestic consumption was the main priority. The use of electric ovens would not only increase the internal consumption of power but also support in health, environment, women empowerment and gender equality, according to him.

Also speaking at the programme, Secretary at the Ministry Dinesh Kumar Ghimire said time has come to pay attention to increase the power consumption in agriculture, transport and other sectors because Nepal will have power surplus from coming rainy season.

Executive Director of Alternative Energy Promotion Centre Madhusudan Adhikari, expert Prof Dr Jagannath Shrestha and other speakers stressed for promoting electricity consumption in the domestic market in different areas. Shrestha claimed that use of electricity is cheaper by 42 per cent in cooking compared to LP gas.

There was no option but to reduce the consumption of LP gas since it was not environmentally friendly but was economically costly and the country paid almost Rs 42 billion for the import of LP gas.