The industrial corridor is presently getting just 35 megawatt from India -- which is just 50 percent of the total supply on Katiya transmission line.[break]
The supply of power was reduced from April 13 to repair transmission line. According to regional office of Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) in Duhabi, India was supplying 70 megawatt from two power circuits, and one has been shutdown for maintenance.
“Industries, which were facing eight hours of load shedding earlier are now going through 16 hours of power cut after India limited the supply of power,” one of the industrialists told Republica. To make matters worse, Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) has also reduced the amount of diesel supplied to run factory during power cut.
Earlier, NOC supplied more than 4 thousand liters of diesel a day.
“More than 500 industries have been affected due to load shedding and diesel shortage,” said Shib Shankar Agrawal, vice-president of Morang Merchant´s Association (MMA), “There should be at least one type of energy source available for us.” He further added the situation was leading to a closure of industries.
“The production has gone down by 80 percent after this crisis hit us,” Agrawal, expressing worries of future status of business, said, “No factories have shut down as yet but none of them are functioning at full capacity.”
“We have been informed by the Indian side that full supply would resume after two days,” said Birendra Thapa, engineer at the regional office of NEA. He further added that the 16 hours of power cut had disturbed daily life in the area as well.
According to Thapa, factories based in the Morang-Sunsari corridor produce goods worth Rs 250 million each day. Jute, soap, iron and alcohol are the major products of the corridor.
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