January 8: Users of electric vehicles are deprived of charging service in one of the major highways of the country as the charging station based at Muglin Bazaar of Ichhakamana rural municipality-5, Chitwan, remains dysfunctional for nearly two months.    
The charging nozzle of the charging station has reportedly broken and two DC chargers are dysfunctional less than a year since the station was installed. Only one AC charger is functioning at present. It takes long time to charge vehicles using the AC charger.    
Dhruba Gurung of Gorkha who came to charge his car complained that service-seekers have been facing problem as the charging station is yet to be repaired. He said that one has to wait for hours to charge vehicles using AC charger.

"The vehicle used to be fully charged in one hour when the charging station was functioning. Now, one has to wait for 2-3 hours to fully charge the car," he expressed his dismay.    
He complained that although the government has emphasized on using electric vehicles, it has not paid attention to constructing additional charging stations and repairing the dysfunctional ones in time.    
According to him, people have to wait in queue for many hours to charge their vehicles since there are not enough charging stations.    
Shiva Adhikari, project manager of Digo, the company which is responsible for constructing the charging station, said that the problem is due to the broken charging nozzle and they have already ordered for the required spare parts that need to be changed. He added that the equipment would be arriving in a day or two.    
Adhikari said that the repair works would be carried out in a day or two by dispatching a technical team.    
Adhikari said 62 charging stations have been installed throughout the country in collaboration with the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA). He stated that problems have been detected in 20 of them. -- RSS