Govt prepares to slash load-shedding by six hrs

The government is making preparations to reduce the ongoing 14-hour long load-shedding to six hours a day.

Briefing the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Sunday, Secretary at the Ministry for Water Resources (MoWR) Shankar Koirala informed about the preparations being carried out by the government to slash the current power outage to six hours by importing electricity from India.

Secretary Kiorala said that the power outage will be reduced to six hours by the first week of March.

According to Koirala, the government has been preparing to import 60 MW of electricity through Koshi transmission line, which was destroyed during Koshi havoc last monsoon. Koirala said that the Koshi line will be reconstructed by the third week of February.

Similarly, Uttar Kumar Shrestha, acting director of Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA), said that Nepal will be a load-shedding free country after five years. He said that 510 MW of electricity will be produced by the government, 250 MW by the private sector and 200-300 MW will be imported from India for this purpose.

PAC had discussed with Minister and secretaries at the Water Resources Ministry about the ongoing load-shedding problem, hydro-electricity projects, among other subjects.