More Darkness
Load-shedding has been an unmistakable feature of daily lives in Nepal. People plan their days accordingly. They sleep and wake up accordingly. Businesses and office-goers, professionals try to adjust their work and daily routine in harmony with the load-shedding schedule published by the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA, aptly called No Electricity Authority of Nepal). NEA is very good at doing it. It changes its schedule and duration time and again, citing different reasons. In summers, its usually because of the flooding at certain rivers that grains and rock try to disturb the hydro-power plants. In winters, its because most rivers originating in the mountains decrease in their volumes because the snow melts less. At other times, its because one or the other power plant needs to be closed because of technical difficulties. At no points do we learn about measures taken to forestall annual occurrences of such events.
Effective from today, NEA has imposed, another schedule. There will be 70 hours of power cut every week. That is 10 hours a day. NEA says that, come mid-January, the duration will be increased. Imagine how lives will move. Industries have already declared that it’d be impossible for them to sustain. Of course, people trading generators, inverters and such like will be very happy, like some others who’d have waited for such days.
The current government has declared its policy of generating 10,000 MW of power in 10 years, while no attempts have been made to control the yearly loss of 25.15 percent power (of total power capacity) by NEA due to power leakage.
In April, I wrote:
… Each day, Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) imposes an eight-hour long load-shedding. I am sure they impose many other hours of unannounced power cuts. This, in a country whose power potential is roughly 83,000 MW, which is equivalent to the combined installed hydroelectricity capacity of Canada, the United States and Mexico (reference), although less than 1 percent has been developed (reference). Inflation is on the rise, making the livelihood of ordinary citizens extremely difficult; exports are hitting their all-time low and so are stock prices. Major industries have been shut down and due to a long time of bad publicity, tourism is only slowly gaining its lost pace.
Bibek, they have different argument. They say that electricity penetration in Nepal is only urban and suburban, so literally many rural part still undergoes 24hr of load shedding (like we have stopped them from electrifying rural).The real sufferers are people who always paid electricity bill loyally along with charges/taxes, which if utilized correctly would have avoided situation we are facing now. Well they have words for their deeds, but we are at misery. And leaders promise plus reality is totally ironic or bullshit rather. Government is trying to build two thermal plant in hurry http://www.kantipuronline.com/kolnews.php?&nid=170978 .
At bottom level we have to listen whatever they say and whatever they impose. But at top level I sense something really exciting going on, regarding commission, bribes and politics of favoritism. NEA and leaders are trying to sell the scary picture in order to fulfill their really dark motive.
Ankur
December 19, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Government promised 10k MW of electricity in 10 years. And the situation has only gone from bad to worse. Still, we can’t do anything! Don’t you think this is miracle. They say na “Kahi na bhayeko mahan chamatkar, hami garchau”. And they are just proving their point.
They say they have been targeting Foreign investment, I don’t see any reason why even a Nepali should invest in Nepal. After all, the already well set industries are at the brink of falling and the industrialists at the verge of becoming bankrupt.
Hope there are mornings after this darkness.
Jitendra
December 19, 2008 at 5:14 pm
hmmmph…. !
khai aru k bhanne
suVasH.....
December 19, 2008 at 9:44 pm
last year there was a front page investigative story on kantipur stating this power-cut is a mere propaganda by NEA to buy diesel powered generators which will eventually give NEA officials their share of commission. but because there’s so much interest in hydropower in nepal, the corrupt NEA officials seem to be unsuccessful in acquiring diesel generators. but i guess they are still workin hard to achieve that evil goal.. there’s never a moment all powerplants in our country are working. either they are under maintainence or ‘cant be operated in full capacity’. ya we dont produce enough electicity, but to the extent we’re facing loadshedding these days, i feel something really fishy!
jwalanta
December 19, 2008 at 10:21 pm
[...] Paudel discusses about the constant power outages in Nepal which are disrupting the daily lives of the Nepalis. [...]
Global Voices Online » Nepal: Darkness in Nepal
December 20, 2008 at 12:14 am
* Assured words + empty deeds = Still Hopeful citizens
* Loud barks of worthless ministers ( + some other fitting into this category ) = Vexed citizens
* Hollow, weightless, proof-less cries = insane officials
* Persistence of this situation = Unexpected and massive emigration
This signifies :
* Filthy governance + filthy officials ( addressed to all those corrupts ) = downfall of state
This is the current scenario of Nepal . One group is there in Facebook , ” Yes i am from Nepal, No i havent climbed Mt. Everest, Yes we do have electricity in Nepal.” . I didnt join this group because we no more have electricity here. And this is the humble request to the creator of that group,whoever he/she is , its high time you changed that group to ” No we dont have electricity in Nepal.”Then may be many will join the group. I already intend to, provided you edit it.
barshaa
December 20, 2008 at 9:12 am
Strong determination….
http://www.kantipuronline.com/kolnews.php?&nid=171185
View from expert….
http://www.nepalnews.com/archive/2008/dec/dec19/news11.php
Smell of a rat….
As bibek’s blog explains
Another national-level suspense thriller…
This thrill..a compensation package for the dark hours.
biswas
December 20, 2008 at 9:50 am
I wish i could make this command to solve this problem
“surmandal@surmandal-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get remove Load-shedding”
surmandal
December 22, 2008 at 11:36 am
surmandal, your command may work but I fear consequences. The dependencies are high and many core modules in system needs upgrade or replacement. Or if unsuccessful, for sake of truthfulness of your command system may counter run
root@system-nepal:~$ mv /nep/surmandal.* /usa/
Ankur
December 22, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Oii, batti aayo!
Hurrayyyy… aha kalilo tama lai, sodha aama lai..
ShutUp
December 24, 2008 at 7:49 pm
I am waiting when loadshedding will actually hit 25hr per day. http://www.nepalnews.com/archive/2008/dec/dec25/news13.php
Ankur
December 25, 2008 at 8:11 pm
Привет!
Предлагаю вашему вниманию клевую форумную игру
Смысл такой:
Надо написать пять слов на выбранную букву и назвать свою букву. И так по цепочке.
Моя буква – В.
Извините, если ошиблась с разделом – я новичок тут
Brawserka
December 26, 2008 at 2:32 am
It’s gonna be 82 hours/week from tomorrow. 12 hours for 6 days and 10 for the one remaining day.
More reason to celebrate the glorious darkness in the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal.
ShutUp
December 28, 2008 at 5:17 pm
I think foreigners will do reserach on Nepalese people abt how are they surviving and how the country’s economy is in going on though on the lack of electricity.
ametya
January 14, 2009 at 4:06 pm
[...] regressive and fundamentalist forces.” So, that’s an update to my earlier post on the divine darkness on this divine [...]
Diversity in Darkness « Bibek Paudel’s weblog
February 6, 2009 at 7:53 am
[...] if this is the way things should have always been. Read my past writings about the load-shedding: More Darkness Diversity in Darkness Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Fighting [...]
The load shedding conspiracy « Bibek Paudel’s weblog
February 25, 2009 at 3:25 am