Chitwan industries feeling heat due to irregular power supply

Narayan Adhikari

Chitwan, July 5 :  The industries and businesses in the district are in crisis due to the irregular power supply. Not only the enterprises, the general public to are facing problems due to the daily frequent power interruptions.   

 
The industries and individuals who had abandoned inverters and generators for power backup before this have now started installing these after the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA)'s Bharatpur Distribution Centre started stopping power supply without issuing prior notice.    

People have started complaining that this problem has arisen due to the negligence of NEA Bharatpur Distribution Centre.   

 
Representatives of the Industry Association of Chitwan had apprised NEA executive director Kulman Ghising about the problem a few days back.    

Association's Chitwan district president Trilochan Kandel complained that they have reached to a state in which it has become difficult to operate their industries. According to him, it is costly to operate generators as well due to the high fuel price. He further said that a situation has arisen in which the workers have no work most of the time due to the frequent power outage. 

   
"The industries are facing a crisis due to the power supply problem. The industries are bearing huge losses due to the ignition of the equipment," he lamented.    

Kandel said that NEA was ignoring the problems faced by the industrialists and businesspersons. As he said, some industries are also losing raw materials due to the erratic power supply. The industrialists are having a hard time even servicing their bank loan installments as they are unable to operate their enterprises to full capacity in the midst of reduced economic dynamism.  

  
A businessman, who is running the plastic industry for a long, Rajendra Oli complained that although they were able to carry out its products as per the schedule even in load shedding, it has now become more unsystematic.   

 
Oli, the proprietor of Plato Tech Nepal and Ashirbad Pipe, said raw materials go waste as a power outage takes place at once the raw materials get heated.    
He expressed concern over the paying attention by the Nepal Electricity Authority to resolving problems of industries, saying there would be no condition to run the industries if such problem continues.    

Not only the industries are facing this problem, general people are also facing problems due to power outages. Small-scale businessmen have been compelled to buy inverters.    

Devi Prasad Sharma of Bharatpur-10 blamed the problem of power outage has been taking place due to collusion between NEA officers and inverter businessmen.  

  
Students are affected due to undeclared load-shedding. Normal life has been affected due to power outages time and again in a hot place like Chitwan.    

Chief of NEA Bharatpur Distribution Centre, Rajeev Kumar Singh claimed that the power outage has been taking time and again as construction activities and electricity upgrading activities are underway. (RSS)