December 26: After the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) started cutting the lines of industries for defaulting the payment of electricity tariff for the dedicated feeder and trunk lines, the Confederation of Nepalese Industries (CNI) has demanded the data of Time of Day (TOD) meter to get information about the change in electricity rates during peak hours and off hours in a day. The NEA officials say that they cannot provide such data.

The federation held a press conference in Kathmandu on Monday and made it clear that the industries will pay the electricity tariff fixed by the NEA on condition that the state-run electricity utility provides data of the TOD meter.

The industrialists claimed that the NEA charged them bills even after load shedding ended on May 14, 2018.

During the press conference, CNI President Rajesh Kumar Agarwal said that the industrialists have been paying the fees for their regular hours and not paying the extra fees for the disputed hours.

"Our major concern is the fee charged after the end of load shedding. The NEA prepared the bill before the Electricity Regulatory Commission fixed the premium rates for the dedicated feeder and trunk line," Chairman Agarwal said, adding, "We have not paid the bill for the disputed period from 2072 to 2075. We requested for the TOD meter data from the authority at that time, but the authority did not provide it.”

Shashikant Agarwal, owner of Reliance Spinning Mills, said that the authority has acted immaturely by cutting the line of the industries. He alleged that the authority sent fake bills and demanded for fees.

“If we pay the bills within seven days after receiving it from the authority, we get a two percent concession. Industrialists are properly utilizing this facility. Therefore, no industrialist has any remaining amount to pay to the authority," he said, adding, "If there is any remaining amount, why is the authority afraid to submit TOD meter data?"

As per the law, the Nepal Electricity Authority has to download and keep the bill recorded in the TOD meter every month and submit the data when there is a dispute related to electricity tariff, but the authority does not have such data.

Suresh Bahadur Bhattarai, information officer of the authority, said that they cannot provide the TOD meter data. Although the authority prepared the bill using the TOD meter, the data cannot be provided right now. Sometimes we can miss the meter reading. We don't have such data,'' he told New Business Age, “Therefore the industrialists should also keep the data safe with themselves. How will the authority provide the date after all these years?”

The authority has stopped power supply to nine big industries since Friday. The industrialists are complaining that they have incurred losses of millions of rupees due to this move of the authority.