16 years on, electricity still a dream for Madi locals

CHITWAN, Aug 8: Wide road, drinking water facility and round the clock power supply were the facilities that the locals of Madi imagined when it was upgraded to a municipality from VDC. But nothing changed. Madi remains the only municipality in the country without electricity, though neighboring town Chitwan dazzle during night.

"We have been waiting for a decade for the electricity. But it seems the wait is never going to end," said a local looking towards the dead wires in his house that were put in place in hope to lighten the house when the electricity comes.The government had completed the installation of electricity poles and wires in Madi 1999. But the lines were never connected to the national transmission line. Coming now, Madi has become a municipality - the only municipality across the nation without electricity. The 16-year old infrastructure has become desolate as the population of the place has increased way beyond what it was back then.

After a decade in 2009, the government announced a new project to supply electricity to the locality via Chanaili. The project availed necessary resources for supplying electricity to 11,000 Madi households with an aim to supply power till February, 2012. However, the project has failed to meet its objective so far.

"Our first trial to supply the electricity failed. It also caused damage to the supply lines and it will take time to fix the damages," Pramod Dhungana chief of Madi Electricity Project. Technicians are yet to figure out the actual problem in the transmission line, Dhungana said.

"The aerial wire network has no problem. Technicians think that underground wires installed across the Chitwan National Park might be at fault," mentioned Dhungana.

Nearly 8 km of the electricity supply lines of the project across the national park is underground.

In response to local's inquiries for a fresh date for supplying the electricity Dhungana remained uncertain. "We cannot say that now."

Former VDC chairman Bhuwani Poudel slammed the concerned authorities for the prolonged delay in availing the electricity to the municipality. He said that the project's progress has been affected due to lack of coordination between the concerned authorities.

Along with that, Poudel also pointed out weak political leadership of the municipality as another reason for the delay. "Political leadership's commitment to bring electricity has shown no signs of materializing. We still suffer. "

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