NEA officials get PAC jolt on power cuts

HIMALAYAN NEWS SERVICE

KATHMANDU: The parliamentary Public Accounts Committee today directed the energy ministry to come up with a detailed action plan ending the chronic power shortage in the country within five years.

The PAC members grilled Rajendra Kishor Chhetri, joint-secretary, Ministry of Energy, and Jivendra Jha, Managing Director, Nepal Electricity Authority, on electricity shortage and ways to resolve the crisis in five years.

The meeting, chaired by Ram Krishna Yadav, decided to invite Energy Minister Dr Prakash Sharan Mahat, energy secretary and the NEA chief on December 13 to further discuss electricity policy and plans of action worked out by the ministry. Minister Mahat was also invited in today’s discussion but he did not turn up due to his “busy schedule”, said Yadav.

MD Jha said the country required a reservoir-type hydel project to overcome the perennial power shortage.

He said it would take at least five years to resolve the problem if the power plants in pipeline, including the proposed 122 MW Upper Seti Reservoir Project, were executed on time. “But these projects will also not completely end the existing power shortage,” Jha said.

He blamed the NEA’s poor financial health for not starting the economically feasible projects indentified by the country’s power monopoly. Power leakage by around 26 per cent, non-increment of the power tariff for the last nine years

and non-availability of the required funds for the construction of transmission lines on major river corridors and overhead cost of the ailing institution were cited as the major hurdles for timely execution of the hydel projects.

Jha said only eight power producers had taken power generation licences, the total installed capacity of which would be around 40 MW, that too during wet season.

Commenting on the NEA’s electricity management, PAC member Hridayesh Tripathi said 26 per cent of power “leakage” cannot be called just leakage as claimed by the NEA. “It is, in fact, massive leakage of energy.”

Kamala Pant, a Nepali Congress lawmaker, alleged that the officials within the Energy Ministry and NEA, who claimed to be water resources experts, were responsible for all the mess in the energy sector. She said the Parliament was ready to review the electricity policy and amend related laws if the existing ones had any flaws.

Rabindra Adhikari, a UML lawmaker, alleged that the NEA had been reaching Power Purchase Agreement with power producers on ad hoc basis. “Sometimes it opens the PPA with the aspirant producers and at it closes the deal without any reason,” Adhikari said.

He also questioned the NEA’s managerial capability and institutional credibility regarding the construction of the much-hyped 456 MW Upper Tamakoshi Project in Dolakha. “Nepal Telecom is now repenting for reaching a financial deal with the NEA, which did not make any financial disclosure of the project,” he said.

“Why did you not work out the financial disclosure before reaching an agreement with the NTC, Employees’ Provident Fund and Citizens Investment Trust?” Adhikari questioned. He claimed that financial deals were made with these institutions without completing the project’s detail project report.