KATHMANDU, Dec 21: Managing Director of Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) Kulman Ghising has claimed that the people who reap benefits from power outages in the country are the ones who recently spread the rumor that the NEA has announced load shedding.
Speaking at a program organized by the Society of Infrastructure Journalists-Nepal on Friday, Ghising claimed that the people who benefit from load shedding have spread the rumor that load shedding has been announced while the incidental power outages across the country have been caused by minor technical problems in the powerplants and supply lines.
“There is no load shedding in the country at the moment, rather there are minor problems in the distribution of hydropower which causes outages for a few hours,” Ghising said, “These outages are caused due to technical reasons in the projects.” He claimed that the current problem of unpredictable outages will be solved as soon as the Upper Tamakoshi Hydropower Project and Kaligandaki Hydropower Project are repaired.
There will be no load-shedding now: NEA
Ghising added that only a few industrial lines were cut during peak hours (5 pm to 7 pm), which made it easier for the authority to allocate power for the general public at that time. He said that the industrialists were also busy spreading rumors that the NEA announced load shedding because they faced power outages.
“The problem of load shedding will also be resolved once the Upper Tamakoshi and Kaligandaki hydropower projects are connected to the national power grid within the next 10 days,” he said.
Ghising claimed that there are many people who benefit from the NEA's losses. He mentioned that there is no option for businessmen than to pay for the electricity consumed by industries while keeping the people in load shedding.
Ghising blamed lack of cooperation from Energy Minister Dipak Khadka in reconstructing projects damaged due to floods in late September, which has affected the power supply now.
