April 19: Less than four years after being declared free from load shedding, industrial establishments have again been hit by power cuts. The Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) had reduced the load shedding hours significantly from 18 hours a day in the past.

However, the joy of the industrialist was short lived. Since last year, industries are again facing power cuts.

It was under the initiative of Kulman Ghising that the load-shedding was reduced last time. He is the executive director of NEA again but there is power cut for 8/9 hours every day.

Industrialists from Bara-Parsa have said that unannounced load-shedding has badly affected them at a time when the market demand is declining since to the Covid outbreak and the interest rates are quite high. 

Anil Kumar Agrawal, president of the Federation of Birgunj Chamber of Commerce and Industries, said that NEA cuts power for 8/9 hours every day without notice.

Industries facing the problem of the high cost of production and low demand in the market, complain that energy shortage has become another headache for them. 

Hari Gautam, the senior vice-president of the federation, said that the overall production of the industries has fallen to around 25 per cent.

"Instead, if there was load shedding as announced, the shift of production could have been arranged. Now you don't know when the light comes on and when it goes off. Workers have to remain idle,” shared Gautam. 

NEA officials say that electricity production has decreased compared to previous years during this dry season and imports from India have also decreased, so they had to stop the supply of electricity to the industry to manage demand during peak hours. Officials of the authority said that electricity production has decreased by 20 per cent compared to last year.

According to the authority's figures, the total demand for electricity at present is 1700 MW while the domestic production is 1300 MW.

The problem has arisen because the imports from India could not be regular. When bringing electricity from India during the peak hour, the authority has to pay more money, so the authority brings it during the off hours.

Nepal imports electricity mainly from Bihar, India. 

Surendra Bahadur Bhattarai, spokesperson of the authority said that the state of Bihar is currently facing an energy crisis.