KATHMANDU: The issue of the trunk and dedicated line which has been in dispute for the past one year is yet to be resolved.
The government had formed a high-level committee under the coordination of Energy Secretary Dinesh Kumar Ghimire to resolve the dispute between the industrialists and the Nepal Electricity Authority.
The committee has mentioned that since the end of load shedding from 2075 BS, an additional premium should not be levied on the tariff after that time.
However, the NEA has been recommended to fix the tariff accordingly as it is seen that the industries are consuming electricity while load shedding from January 3, 2016, to May 14, 2018.
This suggestion has been flatly rejected by the industrialists. The industrialists allege that there has been an act of misleading and insulting the industrialists.
Following the committee’s suggestion, Nepal Cement Manufacturers’ Association, Nepal Steel Rolling Mills Association and Nepal Yarn Producers’ Association have objected and said that the bill was sent by forcing additional tariff even though there was no power supply from dedicated and trunk lines.
The organization said that when there was load shedding for 18 hours a day, the industrialists were operating by managing energy from diesel generators. At that time, some industries had taken dedicated feeders for 24 hours of electricity.
The NEA Board of Directors had approved the 716th Board of Directors meeting held on June 27, 2015, with the condition of providing 24 hours electricity to the dedicated feeders.
NEA had submitted the rate to the Electricity Tariff Assessment Commission for approval on January 4, 2016.
After that, the information regarding the tariff rate approved by the commission meeting held on January 13 was published in Gorkhapatra on January 26.
The notice said, “The tariff will be levied only on customers who are continuously receiving electricity through dedicated feeders.”
According to the information on the commission, electricity should be available 24 hours a day.
However, NEA has informed that the supply of electricity through dedicated feeders to non-government private sector establishments, industry, business hospitals and nursing homes has been postponed. The organization claims that all the industries had followed the load shedding schedule after this information.
The notice was published on January 26 with the headline “Change in tariff rate for customers taking electricity through dedicated line”, the authority said in a statement issued at the time, “The rate has been changed only for the customers who consume electricity 24 hours a day from the dedicated feeder.”
Based on the information, those industries did not have to suffer load shedding. But even with a dedicated feeder, they had to suffer from load shedding.
They have said that even the industries that had taken dedicated feeders on the basis of this information experienced load shedding till May 13, 2018. At that time, consumers who did not follow the schedule of load shedding were prosecuted for stealing electricity as per the regulations of NEA.
On October 2, 2016, the Tariff Assessment Commission decided that the customers who take the uninterrupted power supply from a separate line for 20 hours or more should be treated as a dedicated tariff.
Regulation 5950 of the NEA regulations state that any customer supplying electricity from the trunk line for 20 hours or more can get it by paying the same tariff as the dedicated feeder. The arrangement was made to get approval from the NEA Steering Committee like Dedicated Line in case of an application for this service.
Such was the arrangement to take the trunk line
(A) Customers of the trunk line should apply separately to NEA for more than 20 hours of electricity.
(B) The application must be approved by the Board of Directors of the Authority.
(C) An agreement must be reached between the customer and the Authority after approval by the Board of Directors.
(D) As per the agreement with the customer, the customer should be given electricity for at least 20 hours daily.
1. In the current context, the customers of the trunk line have not applied for 20 hours or more of electricity during load shedding.
2. Some have no NEA agreement and some have not received at least 20 hours of electricity daily.
3. As there is no such provision, there is no precondition to collect the tariff at the rate as per regulation 5 (2) of the regulations.
Why not look at the TOD meter?
Regulation 10 of NEA stipulates that customers with TOD meter connection must download data along with meter reading in April of each year.
This data provides information on electricity consumption. Based on these statistics, they have stated that they are ready to pay if they had consumed electricity through dedicated and trunk.
“If we had electricity 24 hours a day, we are ready to pay the dedicated tariff,” the organizations said in a statement.
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