Urja Khabar
Bhairahawa : Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA), the only power provider in the nation, has Rs. 820 million arrears among consumers under Bhairahawa distribution centre. Despite several initiatives it has been unable to collect the amount from the market.
NEA consumers are not ready to pay the arrears which is the reason the amount of arrears increased every year due to backlog of electricity tariff.
According to the NEA, Rs. 820 million arrear excludes fines. Generally, NEA collects arrears with a fine of five to 25 per cent. The data in NEA show that most of the industries, offices of the government, hotels, schools and institutions had not paid their dues.
Industries that hold dedicated trunk lines alone have around Rs. 660 million arrears to clear. Data say that they paid for the electricity tariff regularly but not for the dedicated feeder. Industries had refused to pay the tariff stating that they did not ask for the line of dedicated feeders for their industries. The dispute is sub-judice at the Supreme Court now. Industries like Everest Rolling Mill, Sona Polymers, Ferro Steels, Jagadamba Synthetics, SR Foods, Siddhartha Pet Plast and Sona Packaging hold a dedicated trunk line feeder of the NEA in Bhairahawa.
Om Bahadur Darlami, Account Officer in NEA-Bhairahawa, said that NEA collected some amount of arrears from the clients. "We already collected Rs. 29 million arrears from our clients in these six months as the process of reducing arrears is underway here,” he said.
According to him, NEA had cut off its power supply to 410 customers in this period. He also informed that Rs. 35 million arrears were yet to be recovered from them.
NEA-Bhairahawa had to collect some Rs. 72.8 million arrears from households, Rs 1.78 million from hotels and schools, Rs. 3.5 million from institutions and non-profit organizations, Rs. 94,000 from cinema halls, Rs. 1.96 million from local levels for street lights and Rs. 1.81 million from irrigation projects yet.
There is a provision that allows NEA to cut the power supply of its clients if they did not pay for the electricity tariff without publishing 60 days' notice after the reading. Despite this, NEA decides as according to the amount of arrears in Bhairahawa.
