PRAKASH DAHAL
HETAUDA: What Nepal Electricity Authority, Hetauda, is doing has given a shock to locals of Hetauda Municipality. NEA increased outage timing by six hours a day and has been supplying regular power to a private cement factory that is under construction.
Locals in several wards of Hetauda Municipality and Hatiya and Harnamadi VDCs have been forced to live sans electricity from 6 am to 12 noon but during the corresponding hours, NEA regularly supplies power to Shiva Om Cement Factory at Hatiya.
Officials at NEA, requesting anonymity, admitted that the local electricity utility had been supplying power to the cement factory. However, to make things look clean, NEA, Hetauda had published a public notice in the local media that it was upping load-shedding hours up to seven hours for the separation of a village-town feeder.
Tripurari Singh, Deputy Manager at NEA, Hetauda, said his office was simply following the ‘order from above’. “We have increased load-shedding hours to supply power to Shiva Om Cement Factory,” Singh told The Himalayan Times today. Stating that it was being done as such was the ‘order from above’, Singh informed that the maintenance work on feeder would continue.
Makawanpur chapter of the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry Chairman Arunraj Sumargi said it was unethical on NEA’s part to supply power to a private cement factory at the cost of thousands of locals’ right to electricity. He accused NEA of ignoring locals’ repeated pleas to ensure regular electricity supply. According to Sumargi, scores of industries in Hetauda and its adjoining areas have been badly affected due to daily seven-hour power cut.
Krishna Sharma, a local, said they did believe NEA’s notice about increase in outage hours and maintenance work for some time. “But we were surprised when the truth surfaced,” he said.
NEA’s move to increase load-shedding hours on the pretext of maintenance has irked locals no end. “It is illegal to increase load-shedding hours for no apparent reason,” said Sharma. “NEA officials in cahoots with cement factory owner have committed a crime.”
