Factories cut production due to power shortage
MADHAV GHIMIRE
Factories in eastern Nepal have had to slash production by 60-90 percent after India reduced the supply of electricity. The Sunsari-Morang Industrial Corridor, one of the country’s major industrial belts, contains more than 500 factories.
As India is currently renovating the electricity towers of the Purniya-Kataiya transmission line, power import has declined by 50 percent to 35 MW from the normal 70 MW. As a result, load-shedding in the east has increased to 16 hours from 10 hours. However, factories in the corridor are only getting eight hours of electricity daily.
“We’re providing eight hours of electricity to the industrial corridor,” said Laxmi Narayan Mukhiya, chief of the Duhabi grid of the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA). “Though demand is increasing, we have been forced to increase the load-shedding hours,” added Mukhiya. The average daily power demand of eastern Nepal is 135 MW.
Industrialists said the power cut had hit their businesses hard. “Processing factories have been affected the most,” said Avinash Bohora, general secretary of the Morang Merchant Association.
Industrialists blamed the government for the current crisis. “Despite knowing that India was decreasing the power supply, the government didn’t show any concern to do anything about it,” said industrialist Champa Lal Rathi. “If the government provides 20 MW from the national grid, the factories here could get some relief.” As the power supply is limited to eight hours a day, industrialists have been forced to operate their factories with diesel plants and generators which has increased their cost of production.
“It has increased the cost of production three-fold,” said Suyash Pokhrel, managing director of MM Plastic. “With the cost of production increasing, we can neither compete with imported products nor manage to run the factories for long.”
The industrialists have been asking the government to repair the multi-fuel plant at Bansbari, Morang at the earliest. The plant has a capacity to generate 39 MW of electricity.
However, repair work at the plant hasn’t progressed as expected. Of the six units, work has begun on only three units. The World Bank has pledged to pay a large portion of the costs of the repair work. With the NEA still struggling to clear the imported machine parts from the customs, the maintenance work may take more time.
Posted on: 2011-04-08 09:14
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