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Community mobilisation can stem power leakage: Minister
LALITPUR, JAN 11 - Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation and Chairman of Board of Director of Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) Sarbendra Nath Sukla has said that stemming electricity leakage and expansion of electrification is not possible without community mobilisation.
"Expansion of electrification is not possible with government machinery. Consumers should be mobilised for the purpose and community mobilisation would be the lasting solution to stop electricity leakage and rural electrification," he said speaking at a certificate distribution program to communities for electricity distribution here today.
Unless there is good understanding among the consumers and the government employees, stemming electricity leakage is not possible, he said, citing example of Bhaktapur where the power leakage is 54 percent.
NEA alone cannot contain such leakage and cannot expand electricity to rural areas. Therefore, the government took the decision to allow users groups to distribute power, collect tariffs and take the profit, he added.
Dr Yuba Raj Khatiwada, member of National Planning Commission, suggested including women and people of all castes in the users groups that distribute electricity generated through small power plants.
He also warned NEA to maintain standard of national power grid unless it could invite problems to the users groups involved in the distribution of electricity. There is problem of investment in rural electrification, he added.
Earlier, Janak Lal Karmacharya, Executive Director of NEA, said that as per the policy of the government to hand over ownership of electrification to the public, the authority was giving away certificates to 18 community organisations for the distribution of electricity.
He also said that 160 organisations had applied for the electricity distribution after the government enacted Community Electricity Distribution Regulation, 2060 (2003) eight months ago. Out of them, 26 applications were accepted and issued Letter of Intent, but only 18 organisations have made an agreement and were receiving certificates.
If such distributors generate electricity by constructing hydropower plants on their own and distribute it, the government provides grants of Rs 75,000 per unit to a power plant generating electricity up to 500 kilowatt, he added.
Of the 18 certified distributors, 11 will take the responsibility of distributing power to 6,804 households, which are already using electricity, of which eight are in Parsa district alone and one each in Chitwan, Tanahun and Jhapa.
Seven groups would electrify afresh of which five are in Gulmi and one each in Lalitpur and Palpa districts. The total cost of the projects would be Rs 124 million and the communities would have to contribute Rs 24 million, 20 percent of the total cost, he added.
Narayan Prasad Gyawali, representative of the communities, said that the distributors face difficulty in collecting electricity tariffs from the security forces stationed at many places of the district.
Bikas Pandey, Country Representative of Winrock International, said that electrification is facing a serious challenge as the NEA electrifies 34,000 households only annually, where as the population grows by 80,000 per year.
He also said that NEA has served 533,630 customers, micro/mini hydro projects 75,000, solar home system 43,000, biogas 122,000 and turbine milling 400,000 customers.
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