January 2: The Nepal Electricity Authority will not be able to collect additional fees from the industries for the electricity consumed before and after the load shedding period. This decision was taken by a meeting of the Electricity Regulatory Commission on Monday. The authority had announced that load shedding had ended on May 14, 2018.

The NEA has demanded the industries to pay additional tariffs even for the electricity consumed after the end of load shedding. The commission’s Secretary Gokarnaraj Pantha said that the commission meeting decided that the NEA will be allowed to collect additional fees only if there was load shedding in the country after May 2018.

According to Pantha, the commission canceled the additional fee for dedicated feeder and trunk line on June 15, 2020.

As the additional charge was valid until the cut-off date, industries will be liable to pay the dues as of June 15, 2020 on condition that that they had utilized electricity for more than twenty hours a day during load-shedding.

The commission’s secretary made it clear that all the customers are getting regular supply of electricity and the authority will not be allowed to charge additional fee for dedicated feeder and trunk lines during normal circumstances.

“The NEA can levy additional charges for using dedicated feeder and trunk lines only in case of load shedding. If the NEA can provide evidence that load shedding was taking place at that time, then it can levy the fee. The main dispute at present is about the bill issued by NEA after it announced the end of load shedding.”