September 9: Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has selected 12 service providers for online payment of electricity tariff. A meeting of the NEA Board of Directors held recently selected those companies for online payment.

Various companies had been providing the facility of online payment of electricity tariff. However, after the decision to allow only the selected 12 companies for online payment of electricity tariff, other companies will not be allowed to make online payment from now onwards.

NEA has given permission to e-Sewa, Sparrow Pay, Sajilo Pay, CellPay, IME Digital Solutions, PayWell, Nepal Digital Payment and iCash Private Limited to make online payments. Electricity tariff can be paid from the mobile app, software etc of the selected companies.

Similarly, Himalayan Bank, Prabhu Bank, Nepal Investment Bank and Mahalaxmi Bank have also been selected for electronic payment services. The authority informed that the tariff can be paid through the mobile app of the banks.

The service providers have stated that they will not charge any fee for the online payment of up to Rs 500 per month. However, PayWell has stated that service charges will not be applied when payment is up to Rs 1,000 per month.

Majority of service providers have said that they will charge a maximum of Rs 5 per transaction for a monthly payment of Rs 500 to Rs 500,000. Out of the 12 service providers, 10 companies have said that they will charge Rs 5 per transaction. Sajilo Pay and PayWell on the other hand have fixed Rs 4.80 and Rs 3 as service charge per transaction, respectively.