Cabinet Appoints Shakya as The 17th Managing Director of NEA for Four Years

Kathmandu, The government has decided to appoint Hitendra Dev Shakya as the Managing Director (MD) of Nepal Electricity Authority. Shakya has been working as Acting MD till now. On Monday (8th Feb.), a meeting of the cabinet decided to appoint him as in its.

Shakya, who has worked with various responsibilities for nearly three decades and is technically competent, is considered to be a person who can lead the authority and energy sector. Prior to this, he was the MD of NEA Engineering Company around 4 years.

According to Article 17 of the Nepal Electricity Authority Act, 2041, the government can appoint a General Manager or an Managing Director to carry out the administrative work of the organization. According to the same provision, the Cabinet has appointed Shakya.

Former Minister for Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation Barshaman Pun had appointed Shakya as the MD of NEA. Before that, NEA Senior Deputy MD Lekhnath Koirala had been given the responsibility of Acting MD for about two months.

Shakya is the 17th person to be appointed as the MD after the establishment of NEA. Initially, Harshaman Shrestha was appointed the first MD in 2042 BS. Most of the MD appointed after that did not get the opportunity to work for full tenure. In the past, Kirti Chand Thakur and Arjun Kumar  Karki had  served as MD for two terms. Thus, Shakya is the 19th MD in terms of tenure and the 17th executive in terms of person.

There are examples in the past where the NEA leadership has not been able to work for full tenure due to increasing political instability and interference in the country. Based on this, Shakya is the second person to get full term (4 years term) responsibility as per the Authority Act. Earlier, Kulman Ghising had the opportunity to work for four years.

Mukesh Raj Kafle, the MD before the time of Ghising, had taken the responsibility for about 22 months. After him, Ghising got a full term to work. After this, it is Shakya who gets the responsibility for full term.

On the recommendation of then Energy Minister Janardan Sharma, the government had decided to appoint Ghising as the MD on 29 Bhadra, 2073 BS. He left NEA on 28th of Bhadra after completing a four-year term. He has got the credit to end the darkness (load shedding) from the country during his tenure. Ghising, who worked strictly, had worked by forming a working group.

In comparision to Ghising’s tenure, it seems more challenging to Shakya, who has become the MD for four years. Load shedding from the country was ended on the basis of long-standing infrastructures, internal management and electricity imported from India.

Now, is not the time like earlier? Despite the end of load shedding, the technical problem of time to time power cut has not been ended. In order to quality of supply, transmission and distribution lines and substations need to be extensively improved. The equipments, including wire and transformer will have to be upgraded. That work is certainly not like the distribution of electricity available in the system yesterday.

The current leadership also faces the challenge of increasing electricity consumption, expanding the electricity market and exporting the power. Shakya is known as a capable and qualified person to do these things. Having worked in Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) in the past, including in Afghanistan and abroad, he is considered to have the ability and expertise to supply, expand and manage quality of electricity.

Even within the authority, he has worked in various departments such as power generation (worked on a project in Chilime), transmission, power house operation, Electricity Trade Department and system operation. Shakya is also known as a polite person who thinks that work should be done in coordination with the general to higher level employees within the organization; he is known as a person who has ability to work in such a way. So, due to his ability, there are signs of improvement in electricity supply side after Ghising left NEA.