--By Madan Lamsal

 

Twelve hours of power-cut, popularly known as load-shedding is a matter of pride for Nepal. It is undoubtedly so for state power monopoly, Nepal Electricity Authority, NEA. The act of shedding a load in its literal meaning too is a good thing. After such shedding one is bound to feel light like a feather, who immediately takes on to dancing with flying finesse.

 

There is no reason that lack of electricity supply should stop you to feel proud and productive if you can think in the speed of electric current itself; like the bosses in NEA do. The other week they organized a press meet to make their scoop achievement public: ‘there will be no more than eighty hours of load-shedding per week. We are working all day to make sure that it doesn’t increase even during the on-setting dry season.’

 

In fact, there was no need of organizing such a press meet as every Nepali by now has accepted the fact that we cannot live without load-shedding. It has become such an undeniable part of our lives that we are now all prepared to make it our heritage. One more along the line of Mt Everest, Lumbini or Durbar Square. The biggest advantage of this is: whole country can become a world heritage site, as load-shedding is not limited to a small area, like cities of archaeological or natural significance.

 

The load-shedding can contribute in a great way to the economic prosperity of the nation. The recent growth stories of our neighbours India and China has been attributed to the outcome of demographic dividend, meaning that since they have more people the growth is faster. Our load-shedding can contribute greatly to baby-boom. As there is no light for long hours right since the evening, couples can be more productive.

 

Recently, there were news reports that some energy-intensive factories like sugar mills got closed due to load-shedding. That is in fact very good news. Low production of sugar will reduce the chances of diabetes in the populace and they don’t have to worry about the doctors who prefer to go for strikes than to serve the patients.

 

You must have heard about electric shocks, electric jolts or electric drinks, meaning our famed bijulipaani. But I have introduced here a very new concept of electric thought. It flows like the electricity itself and once guided to certain direction, it hardly changes the direction or comes back. New NEA executive director recently enlightened us by revealing that load-shedding is caused not only because less amount of electricity was produced but also due to lack of transmission lines to transport the produce. There are not enough transmission lines even to bring in the electricity India is prepared to give. When private producers start production, this bottleneck is sure to remain there. It is apparent that the electric thought of NEA so far was directed only to the production of electricity. Yet, NEA’s electric thought has not been redirected to other than production aspect, to ensure longer years of power outages even when there is production aplenty.

 

Some thoughts were non-electric so they did never reach the other end of the objectives. We heard the plans of setting up diesel plants of some 120 MW, heard about bio fuel-fed generators and augmenting the supply by solar panels or air turbines. But these were the plans never implemented, duly understanding the importance of the load-shedding for the country.

 

By all standards, the very concept of load-shedding is the true personification of the electric thought. Everybody knows, darkness can travel faster than the electricity itself. Therefore NEA needed to call a press conference to explain there is ensured darkness for any foreseeable years. It was a great idea propelled by none other than the electric thought to make presence of NEA felt to the public.