It’s now easier to remember the hours when there will be electricity, as the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has increased the power outage hours to 12 hours – for three days – and 11 hours – for four days in a week – from the current nine hours, effective from Sunday.
According to the new schedule of the state-power utility, the load-shedding will be increased to 80 hours a week – from current 63 hours – from Sunday.
Last winter the NEA had increased the power outage hours to 16 hours a day.
The NEA that has been unable to check leakages and red-tape is on the way to become technically insolvent like Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) thanks to political bickering and the employees unions.
The Electricity Development Board has recently suggested to increase the electricity tariff by 20 per cent, but the increased tariff will also not cover the losses the NEA is incurring due to mismanagement in the authority that is itself a electricity producer, distributor and regulator too.
The consumers will have to bear the cost of power outages in every sectors due to added charge of generator sets and expensive and imported petrol and diesel. The domestic products will also be more expensive than the imported ones due to the increased cost of power that is eroding Nepal’s competitiveness.