Our economic growth model is heavily dependent on the import of fossil fuels as we are yet to fully adopt green energy consumption. According to the data obtained from Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) our gasoline consumption almost doubled in the last five years that’s leads our country to the heavy trade defecit. In the financial year 2018/19 we have almost imported around 21600 crores of petroleum products.
I think bringing company like Tesla which utilized electricity as their main source instead of fuels and petrols would change the complete scenario of our country. As we are enriched with rivers we should invest more on hydro industry and shift our dependency towards electricity. That way we can change our economy and decrease our dependency on countries like India. This will decrease our import on petroleum products with 72% that is equal to 15500 crores .
Similarly, the surplus energy that is being currently exported can be stopped and can be utilized for home electrification, electrification of transport sector and other further rural electrification to promote the cottage industry and local productions. Government also can put a limit per family in using the LPG cylinders and promote electrical stoves and inductions for cooking. This will decrease our import on petroleum products with a16% that is equal to 3500 crores.
The following scenario seems to be possible and applicable as the import duty on electric vehicles is 10% whereas import duty on gasoline powered vehicles is around 240%. To make it further applicable and cheaper the government government can give subsidies, and can convince Tesla to use raw materials and labor from Nepal and build a manufacturing plant here, which leads to a very low cost. Although electric cars seems to be expensive in short term but will be cheaper in long term. As a result of which import of petroleum products will be decreased from 21600 crores to 2600 crores.