Load shedding hours to increase to daily 12 hours from Sunday

Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has increased the power cut hours effective from Sunday.

A consumer will have to face 12 hr power cut a day Sunday onwards.
The extra hour of mandatory power cut imposed by the authority is going to be increased four hours weekly to 84 hours from the current 80 hours further worsening the industrial climate.

Increased demand versus supply also due to reduction of water level in the rivers with the onset of winter has been key reasons behind the new schedule.

Rise in power cut hours will not only increase import of diesel and petrol but also fuel inflation due to increased operational cost of the industries.

Petroleum product is the largest import of the country that imports around 25 per cent fuel out of its total imports.

The increased cost will also make domestic products uncompetitive.

According to the central bank recent data, the industries have been operating at only 57 of their capacity due to lack of electricity and increasing dependency of he imported fossil fuel

Despite having huge economically viable hydropower potential, the current production stands at 1200MW only making some 700MW power deficit.