July 6: The industries operating in Chitwan district are in crisis due to irregular power supply. Not only the enterprises, the general public too are facing problem due to the frequent power interruptions every day.    
The industries and individuals who had abandoned inverters and generators for power back up have now started installing these devices after the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA)'s Bharatpur Distribution Centre started stopping power supply without issuing prior notice.    
People have started complaining that this problem has arisen due to the negligence of NEA Bharatpur Distribution Centre.    
Representatives of the Industry Association of Chitwan had apprised NEA executive director Kulman Ghising about the problem few days back.    
The association's Chitwan district president Trilochan Kandel complained that they have reached to a state in which it has become difficult to operate their industries. According to him, it is costly to operate generators as well due to the high price of fuel. He further said that a situation has arisen in which the workers have no work most of the time due to the frequent power outage.    
"The industries are facing a crisis due to the power supply problem. The industries are bearing huge losses," he lamented.    
Kandel said that NEA was ignoring the problems faced by the industrialists and businesspersons. He added that some industries are also losing raw materials due to the erratic power supply. The industrialists are having hard time even to pay their bank loan installments as they are unable to operate their enterprises in full capacity.    
Rajendra Oli, a businessman, who has been running a plastic industry since a long time, complained that although they were able to carry out production as per the schedule even during the period of load shedding, it has now become more unsystematic.    
Oli, the proprietor of Plasto Tech Nepal and Ashirbad Pipe, said raw materials get wasted as power outage takes place at once the raw materials get heated.    
He expressed concern over NEA's apathy to resolve the problems of industries, saying there would be no condition to run the industries if the problem continues.    
Not only is the industries that are facing this problem, but the general public is also facing problem due to power outage. Small-scale businessmen have been compelled to buy inverter.    
Devi Prasad Sharma of Bharatpur-10 blamed that problem of power outage has been taking place due to collusion between NEA officials and inverter businessmen.    
Students are affected due to undeclared load-shedding. Normal life has been affected due to power outage time and again in a hot place like Chitwan.    
Chief of NEA Bharatpur Distribution Centre, Rajeev Kumar Singh claimed that the power outage has occurred time and again as construction activities and electricity upgrading activities are underway. -- RSS