KATHMANDU, OCT 17 –
The Nepal Electricity Authority ( NEA ) has been recommended to downsize its number of employees and consolidate different business groups under it. Such recommendations were made in the organisation and management (O&M) Survey, a part of which will be made public on Wednesday.
The survey has called for the streamlining of the NEA workforce to keep the state-owned power utility efficient, proactive and professional. The NEA at present has over 9,000 staffers across the country.
It has recommended eight top executives below the managing director of the NEA . The authority currently has 10 different business groups, headed by general managers. “Establishment of separate units to operate similar tasks will only delays the work and create confusion,” said Tek Nath Acharya, an NEA board member, who led the O&M Survey. “If such divisions are combined into one, it will not only decrease the financial burden but also increase the NEA ’s efficiency.”
It has suggested consolidating distribution and consumer services for the East and West into one. “The separate departments of distribution and consumer services have created disturbances in smooth implementation of assigned works. There is no need to maintain separate divisions for doing same work,” states the report, calling for scrapping of Large Power Plant Operation and Maintenance Department and Medium Power Plant Operation and Maintenance Department, which is looked after by two departments under the Generation, Operation and Maintenance division.
“Bringing down the number of top executives and business groups to eight each will reduce NEA ’s annual loss by as much as Rs 5 million,” states the preliminary draft that is under the internal discussion at the NEA . In a bid to initiate organisational and managerial reforms, a technical panel was formed seven months ago.
Likewise, it has called for making Transmission and System Operation and Grid Development Division into single unit. Citing implementation of very few transmission line development projects, and many more in pipeline due to the lack of financial resources, the report termed operating the two divisions separately unscientific in monetary terms.
At a time when the government has decided to set up the National Grid Company (NTC) to look into works related to the energy transmission and transmission line development, the two divisions do not have any practical meaning, Acharya said.
According to the report, various departments, including rural electrification, leakage control and finance should be established under the Department of Consumer Services. With no dedicated leakage control unit, the NEA has been suffering million of rupees in revenue loss every year due to electric leakage. NEA spokesperson Sher Singh Bhat said that once the committee submits its full report, the report would be brought under the extensive discussions with stakeholders and government.
Source : The Kathmandu Post
