October 4: While the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has been saying that the possibility of wasting surplus electricity has increased, the import of generators and batteries has also increased.

Looking at the statistics of the last three months, the import of generators and batteries that are used as alternative sources of electricity has been increasing steadily. The NEA had announced the end of load shedding across the country two years ago. In the first 10 months after that, although the import of generators and inverters did not decrease significantly, the import of batteries was gradually declining.

According to the data released by the Department of Customs recently, the import of generators and batteries has been doubling up every month even though there are no imports of inverters.

In the last month of the previous fiscal year, 675 units of generators and 7,000 units of batteries were imported, but the import of batteries and generators has doubled in July. Similarly, the import of batteries and generators doubled in August compared to July.

President of the Confederation of Nepalese Industries (CNI) Satish Kumar Moore said that the industrialists did not import generators due to the closure of industries and reduction in production after the lockdown.

He further said that although it is certain that there won’t be load shedding, it is unnatural as there is no particular reason for increase in import of generators. “This is not the time to increase the import of generators. It does not seem that the import has increased due to the fear of load shedding after the departure of Kulman Ghising from NEA. But the increase in import of generators is unnatural,” he said.

After the dismissal of Kulman Ghising from the post of executive director of NEA, there is widespread fear among the public about reappearance of load shedding. The NEA, however, has said that there is no truth in the rumors that load shedding has started and there won’t be any load shedding.