NT’s investment plan in an IT company is currently under consideration in its board. “It will provide quality IT based services and develop local internet contents,” said Anoop Ranjan Bhattarai, managing director of NT, addressing an interaction today. He said that the availability of local contents in the internet will help reduce bandwidth costs going abroad.
Even as consumption of internet contents has increased due to swelling of data users, there has been shortage of local contents. According to Bhattarai, the size of investment in the company would be decided by the NT Board. The cash rich state-owned company since long has been planning to invest in profit-making business.
Also as a part of investment portfolio diversification, NT has made investments in hydropower projects like Upper Tamakoshi 456 MW and Trishuli 3B 42 MW. In Upper Tamakoshi, the company has invested Rs six billion as a loan. Similarly, in Trishuli 3B 42 MW, it has 30 per cent joint investment with Nepal Electricity Authority. Bhattarai said that while the loan extended to Upper Tamakoshi was to facilitate nation building, the motive behind investment in Trishuli 3B was to make profit.
NT — also one of the largest institutional depositors — has over Rs 25 billion in cash reserve in banks and financial institutions. From its savings, it has been earning over Rs three billion as interest annually from those financial institutions. Earlier, it had considered opening a company for managed service for installation and maintenance of telecom service networks.
NT has also expressed interest to diversify investment by establishing a service-oriented company for electricity generation and transmission. To this effect, it had made amendments to its memorandum and articles of association three years ago. The idea to set up an IT company came after detailed study by a committee formed by NT Board, according to Guna Keshari Pradhan, spokesperson for NT.
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