Minister Pun instructs for prompt resolution of power outage relates issues

Kathmandu: Minister for Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation Barshaman Pun has instructed the state-owned Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) to immediately address the issues surrounding the electricity outages reported in some parts of the Kathmandu Valley and other parts of the country owing to the bad weather.    
Summoning more than half a dozen of Deputy Executive Directors of the NEA including its Officiating Managing Director Lekhanath Koirala here today, Minister Pun directed them to work to the best of their authority and capacity to ensure smooth power supply to all the customers. He also told the NEA authority to inform him immediately if there were any big issues regarding it and needed his positive intervention.    
"The public are our customers and it is our duty to address their grievances at the earliest," asserted Pun, urging the NEA staffers to acknowledge the rights of the public to avail regular service for electricity.    
Appealing to the NEA high-ranking office-bearers not to take the grievances of the customers in a negative light, the Minister argued that the NEA should deliver best irrespective of who is in its leadership.    
Furthermore, he drew the attention towards the gravity of the inconvenience caused to the students and teachers for e-learning activities if power supply was interrupted and was irregular and said that the NEA should be serious about such situation.    
On a different note, the Minister also informed that he had presented a proposal to the Council of Ministers to reappoint Kulman Ghising as the Executive Director of the NEA and said it was currently under deliberation.    
Similarly, Ministry's secretary Dinesh Kumar Ghimire clarified that the Ministry was ever serious towards fixing the issues in the NEA and towards ensuring regular smooth power supply to the people.    
Likewise, Spokesperson of the Ministry and Joint-Secretary Prabinraj Aryal recommended putting in place a system that would timely notify the public about issues surfacing in electricity distribution system and would inform about likelihood of power outages in advance.    
NEA's Officiating Director Koirala shared that the power distribution system had faced some issues due to bad weather and such issues would be fixed to a large extent with the improvement in weather.    
"The staffers at the NEA were working hard day and night to make sure that there was no glitch in power distribution system,' he said reassuringly. He also cited how the NEA staffers had fixed the electricity related issues in Khokana area in Lalitpur and Grande Hospital area in Kathmandu working overnight.    
Other factors affecting the power distribution systems, according to NEA Distribution Directorate Chief Harraj Neupane, were torrential rain, flood, landslide, lightning, falling off trees over electricity poles among others.    
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