SIMKOT: The district headquarters of Humla, Simkot, has been facing 20-hour long load shedding for long. Huge amount is spent every year to regulate electricity supply, but the people here are bound to stay in dark.

During the winter, the Humla people suffer worst with load shedding all because of sheer recklessness of employees at Electricity Authority Office. The people here complain that most of the employees except Office chief are the locals who are not capable to fix the problems.

The load shedding is continued also because of unskilled employees. The Simkot Office of the Authority has however said the power production was declined these days. The industries at Simkot have been facing huge difficulty after the Hildum Micro Hydropower Project is imposing 20-hour long outage. All furniture industries, electric shops and mobile shops have been closed due to this.

There are seven furniture industries at Simkot. Electric shop owner Nand Singh shared the plight that the shop was closed for long. “How long such problems go on? We need to run shop for earning livelihood,” he wondered. Sunmati Singh of Nand Mobile Centre said the mobile repair shop was closed due to power outage for long time. The electricity comes only for four hours- that too during night. It is said more than three dozens of enterprises have been badly affected with the load shedding.

The students are also bearing the brunt of outage. Anjila Rokaya, an 8th Grader at Man Sarobar Secondary School, said, “It has been difficult for us to continue study. We can’t finish homework.” The students who have thronged Simkot for tuition classes for the SEE are worried much with 20-hour long power outage. District Hospital’s senior ANM Sarita Bohara informed that all services that need electricity were disrupted at the hospital.

Distribution Centre Chief of Himdul Micro Hydropower Project Sajan Aidi said, “The project with the capacity of 500KW has now producing only 140 to 150KW electricity. It is main reason behind increasing load shedding hours.”