Kathmandu, December 26
Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has reduced the leakage of electricity in the system to 14.35 percent in the first four months of the current Fiscal Year (FY) 2078/79.
NEA has managed to reduce the leakage of system from 17.18 percent in the last fiscal year by 2.83 percentage points to 14.35 percent in the last four months of the current fiscal year through regular campaign for power supply and control of technical and non-technical leakages.
Of the leakage in the system till November, 9.24 percent is towards distribution and the rest is towards transmission and production. As of November last year, the leakage towards
distribution was 12.01 percent. Compared to the four months of last year, the leakage towards distribution this year is 2.77 percentage points less.
NEA has set a target to reduce electricity leakage to 15.5 percent in the current fiscal year. NEA Executive Director Kulman Ghising said that the target would be achieved in the remaining period of the current fiscal year as the leakage was less than the target in the first four months.
NEA had reduced the leakage of electricity from 25.78 percent in FY 2072/73 to 15.25 percent in FY 2076/77. However, in FY 2077/78, the leakage had increased by 1.91 percentage points and reached 17.18 percent.
Executive Director Ghising said that the leakage control campaign has been carried out
effectively, increasing the capacity of substations, adding conductors, replacing overloaded
transformers and encouraging the use of three-phase meters.
Ghising said that the power supply to the industries has increased and the leakage control
campaign has been made stronger and more effective to reduce the leakage from the target set for the current year.
‘For non-technical leakage control, theft control, strict collection of tariff arrears, strict action against those who steal meters by bypassing and hooking up, changing closed meters, encouraging people to take meters, identifying and reading customers who have no meter reading (stock unit) is run as a campaign.’, He said.
He said that even in such a situation, our employees have been attacked while controlling the theft.
Stating that leakage will increase in winter in Kathmandu Valley and summer in Terai region, Ghising said that the current year target will be achieved by making the nationwide campaign for technical and non-technical leakage control more vigorous and effective.
NEA management will sign performance agreements with the heads of seven provincial and
two provincial division offices of NEA and subordinate distribution center heads focusing on
power leakage control, electrification and service flow improvement.
Executive Director Ghising added, “Responsibility has been started on the basis of ‘suitable person in suitable place’ to improve customer service, provide more electricity to customer, control electricity leakage, collect electricity tariff, electrification etc. We are doing this, it will improve leakage control, electrification, service flow, etc.’
By Karuna Thapa
