The Ministry of Energy has formed a committee under Joint Secretary Sandeep Kumar Dev in a bid to control electricity leakage.
Power leakage swelled to 25.78 percent in the fiscal year 2015-16 from 24.44 percent in the previous year despite sustained efforts by the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) to cut such losses, according to its annual report. The authority had made available just over 5,100 GWh of energy in its system.
The five-member committee has been assigned to control technical and non-technical leakages, the Energy Ministry said in a press release. Other members of the panel are NEA Director Bajra Bhusan Chaudhary, Deputy Manager Bijaya Chaudhary, engineer Jayaraj Bhandari and independent expert Netra Gyawali.
The committee has been given eight tasks including studying the status of electricity leakage, creating an action plan to reduce it and recommending measures to control losses. It will also prepare a reward system to reduce leakage.
The committee, according to the ministry, will prepare an action plan for regular monitoring and inspection, take action against power theft in the field, direct the agencies concerned and arrange security in coordination with the chief district officer to control leakage.
The NEA has blamed prolonged unrest in the Tarai for its failure to collect electricity bills from customers and the rise in leakage in the region in the last fiscal. The NEA’s system losses are lumped with unpaid bills in its financial system. However, its system losses have always been higher.
Poor quality of the distribution system, huge amount of unpaid bills and power theft are the major reasons behind the losses, according to the NEA.
While the generation and transmission systems adopted by the authority are of international standard, the distribution system is bad, an NEA official said.
NEA Managing Director Mukesh Kafle recently told the Post that the distribution system was pathetic as the transformers were very old. The 11 and 33 KVA lines used by the NEA to distribute electricity are very inefficient.
Source : The Kathmandu Post
