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Nepal declares power emergency, 14-hour daily outage likely
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by Sanjay Jha | December 26, 2008 at 01:56 am
391 views | 4 Recommendations | 4 comments
Pakistan is facing severe power crisis and now its neighbour Nepal has also reported similar kind of crisis. Nepal, which used to have power surplus, faces a dismal future with its Maoist government announcing a power emergency.
The Nepalese government declared a national power emergency, which will cause the government's popularity to dip further and deliver a hard blow to industries, tourism, education and healthcare services. Already enduring a 10-hour power outage daily, Nepal will see the blackout rise to 14-16 hours from Monday as its main power-producing river has begun drying up and the nation faces its worst ever energy crisis.
The Maoist-led government has declared a national power emergency and decided to set up diesel-operated power plants to help meet demand.
The Minister for Water Resources, Bishnu Poudel, said the new power cuts would come into effect from next week.
The situation has worsened after a fall in the level of reservoirs supplying water to hydro-electric projects.
A fortnight ago, Nepal's government announced that consumers would face 10 hours of daily power cuts after declaring the country's utilities in crisis.
Nepal produces only about half of its electricity needs and the amount of power that the country imports from neighbouring India is not enough to make up the shortfall.
The decade-long Maoist insurgency, which ended two years ago, hampered development work in Nepal, including the building of new power plants.
The Maoists became the largest parliamentary party in April elections after ending a decade-long civil war.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (4)
at 02:33 on December 26th, 2008
Power crisis is big problem in nepal, some years ago it used to be surplus nation, the T&D loss in Nepal is a big problem.
at 10:13 on December 26th, 2008
Power outages 14-16 hours Nepal. this means no power. Pakistan same problem. Many cities in Africa have power sharing, Electricity goes from One part of the village to the other. The problem needs a Smart power low cost grid, what is able to limit consumption 500 W per Home, Eco light bulbs, refrigerator, TV. Would be a product to develop by Bangalore.
at 10:18 on December 26th, 2008
It has been almost impossible to operate any service industry based on electricity in Kathmandu now.
I see a big upheavel in the coming days. I suspect the economy of the country might collapse if this is coupled withe the collapse of remittance based economy which is dependent on the middle eastern economies...
at 18:50 on December 30th, 2008
It's a huge problem. 14 hours a day, I can't really judge what's the matter in Nepal. I live in New York right now. I've just moved from Kathmandu to N.Y. Hearing this electricity problems makes me crazy.