Less than a week after the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) had increased the load shedding hours from six hours to fifteen hours a week, it has announced that from Thursday onwards, every household will face 36 hours of power cut each week.
Stating that the dwindling supply has become grossly inadequate to meet the rising demands, the NEA has said that every household will now face six hours of load shedding every day for six days a week. Each household will enjoy one day free of load shedding.
The load shedding hours have been divided into four categories – morning, daytime, evening and night time.
As per NEA's schedule, the morning schedule will involve power cuts between 5 am – 8 am; 6 am – 9 am; and 8 am – 11 am.
Likewise, the daytime schedule will involve power cuts between 9 am – 12 noon; 12 noon – 3 pm; and 3 pm – 6 pm.
The evening schedule includes 5 pm – 8 pm; 5:30 pm – 8:30 pm; and 6 pm – 9 pm. The night time schedule will include 9 pm to 12 am, 12 am to 3 am and 3 am to 6 am.
The NEA has said that currently it faces demands over 700 MW of power while the supply has come down below 500 MW. As the winter has set in, the water volume in snow-fed rivers have receded causing the most of the hydropower projects to run way below their capacity.
The government had promised to lessen load shedding woes by importing around 40 MW of power from India within mid-January. But this has not materialized yet. NEA has come up with a separate power cut schedule for Hetauda and Birgunj, however, as both are industrial towns. nepalnews.com ag/sd Jan 09 08
