SANGAM

Energy crisis hits economic activities

By Sangam Prasain
Kathmandu, Dec. 30, 2008:
The energy-crisis is starting to have all-round impact on the industrial, social and economic sectors of Nepal. Almost everyone from common consumers to business entrepreneurs has been witnessing the cascading impacts of power cuts.The load shedding schedule experienced in rolling blackouts across Nepal have been directly and indirectly impacting the value of production and resulting in increasing cost of every thing.
Business entrepreneurs and experts have widely accepted that the prolonging load shedding problem can further worsen the business and organizational firms forcing them to close down.
Industrial Sector
Among the worst sufferers include the industries and businesses. From manufacturing to service industries, all have been subject to swelling hours of power cuts.
Kush Kumar Joshi, president of Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI), an umbrella organization of private sector, said that the 13-hour a day load shedding has decreased the industrial production to almost nil.
He pointed out that business entrepreneurs could not operate their industries using diesel plant, due to this problem export sector has become fragile.
He said that recently the country’s revenue was generated through import, under imposing burden of taxes, which could hamper the industrial growth. "If there is no industrial growth, the solution to unemployment and rapid economic development will be a fry cry," he said.
Government should immediately bring additional power and address the increasing labor disputes to improve the economic situation in the wake of this recent crisis, he added.
Communication Sector
A leading communication sector, Nepal Telecom, is widely suffering due to the load shedding. Due to this problem the quality of the mobile communication and network exchange system are disrupted, causing the costs to climb up.
Kanhaiya Lal Gupta, Deputy Managing Director at NTC, Telephone Exchange, Engineering Department, said that backup power was available in the exchange department for just 12 hours.
He said that Tele-exchange being a sensitive system operation and the backbone of network and communication had to operate at any cost. Exchange system will never be closed, he said.
He said that in the RS4 exchange system covering 2000 and 2500 exchange there was a battery with backup capacity of six hours in each system. There are two generators for ‘5000 exchange’ system, which makes the system fully ensured during the load shedding.
Jeevan Ratna Shakya, General Manager at BTS system, NTC, however, said that due to the long hours of power outages there was no time to charge the backup system. He said that 15 to 20 BTS towers were daily affected, which was making the mobile network error-prone.
He said that the mobile operation in different parts of Nepal was disrupted and the network quality worsened. "We are planning to operate generators and more backup systems in the high traffic areas to smoothly operate mobile network system.
He said that the increment in the operation cost was automatic, due to the backup system costs.
Satish Rajbhandari, Area Supervisor of Worldlink Communication Private Limited, said that Worldlink was bearing additional costs of 30 to 50 per cent due to the load shedding. He said that his organization had a backup support for 2 to 3 hours and they operate the remaining hours through generators.
He said that the number of customers or users had declined by 50 per cent after the load shedding hours prolonged.
Banking Sector
The load shedding regime has triggered impacts on banking sector sending the operating cost of a bank soaring to above Rs.10 million yearly.
Suman Neupane, General Manager of Sunrise Bank Limited, said that banks are compelled to operate their transactions with the help of power generators, which increases the costs.
He said that the bank’s interest rate varies by 0.5 per cent every month while using the diesel and other backup systems. Hesaid that the ATM counters are also affected by load shedding as they are closed when the batteries run out of charge.
Social Sector
The load shedding has affected social security giving some opportunists a chance to take advantages of the blackouts in the society.
Manju Bhakta, a shop owner at Bhaktapur district, charged that blackouts increased theft and robbery. She said that in the past year her shop used to be open till late hours but load shedding compelled her to close her shutter soon.
"We fear robbery, besides the business has dropped down as we have to close shop in the blackouts," she said.
Binod Singh, Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Nepal Police and Spokesperson, however, claimed that crime in the capital city was as earlier. Due to the bolstered security the miscreants are not finding opportunities to execute their notorious plans.
He said that the police administration had increased patrolling to control crimes during the evening and midnight hours. He said that one cop was providing 14-16 hours of service on an average daily. Earlier they used to be deputed for 10 hours a day. "We are facing a problem with the manpower to bolster security in this difficult situation," he said.