'Industrialists not yet adopted legal recourse on electricity tariff'

Kathmandu, Aug 9: The Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has clarified that the industrialists have not yet adopted legal recourse in connection with the dispute related to 'dedicated' and 'trunk line' electricity tariff which has been a talk of town lately.     

As the industrialists have to submit application to the review committee of the NEA if any complaint on the bill issued by the Authority, it has not been done so far, the NEA sources said.     

At a press conference organized at NEA today, its Executive Director Kulman Ghising said, "We cannot leave or exempt the state's revenue in the context when the industrialists have not approached the review committee and the court had already issued a verdict to collect the tariff."     

He informed that all the details of the time of day (TOD) meter related to dedicated and trunk line charges to the industry have been made available to the Public Accounts Committee of the Federal Parliament.     

"I have furnished all the details to the agencies that had asked for them. If needed, we can provide the details again. But it is not deemed necessary to give the evidence to anyone asking for them in public places. I have given necessary documents to the concerned authorities," he said.     

Ghising said the NEA provided all the details to the PAC as demanded on Thursday itself.     

According to Ghising, NEA's accumulated loss was Rs 8.89 billion in the fiscal year 2072/73 BS. The NEA had posted a net profit of Rs 1.5 billion in the fiscal year 2073/74 BS. In the last fiscal year, the NEA had earned a profit of Rs 13.31 billion.     

The Authority that had suffered losses of Rs 34.61 billion eight years ago now has reached a accumulated profit of Rs 47.41 billion.     

The profit was increasing despite reducing the electricity tariff by about 25 percent three times, Ghising said, claiming that out of the total 5.9 million customers of the NEA, about 2.2 million consumers have been given energy free of cost by keeping the minimum fee of Rs 30.(RSS)