A meeting of the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) board of directors held on Monday to implement Sunday’s Cabinet instruction ended inconclusively.

A Cabinet meeting on Sunday had instructed the NEA board to resume power supply to several industrial firms within 24 hours. The power utility had discontinued electricity supply since October 24 for the firms’ failure to pay overdue bills.

“The output of the firms has drastically decreased, their revenue has declined due to disruption in power supply and this has also hit employment,” Minister for Information and Communication Prithvi Subba Gurung, who is also government spokesperson, said on Sunday after the Cabinet meeting. “Therefore, the ministry of energy, water resources and irrigation has been instructed to make arrangements to restore the power supply.” He said the ministry has also been asked to recover the due amounts from the firms within 15 days.

The board meeting ended without a definite decision after it failed to meet the required quorum.

According to a source at the NEA, out of eight board members only four were present at Monday’s meeting, while at least five members are needed to meet the quorum.

But the spokesperson for the Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation Chiranjeewee Chataut appeared confident on Monday stating the ministry had sent a letter to the NEA on Monday evening instructing it to enforce the Cabinet decision, and implementation is expected to start Tuesday.

“The ministry has written to the NEA for the implementation of the government’s decision,” Chataut told the Post.

Meanwhile, the Employee Welfare Council of the NEA on Monday protested against the government’s directive for the authority to restore power to the industrial firms within 24 hours.

The NEA had disconnected power to 34 industrial firms when some industrialists failed to pay for using dedicated and trunk lines, but the government has been putting pressure on the authority to resume supply.

At least 14 industrialists, including two government-owned cement factories, have paid their installments so far after the NEA disconnected the power supply. Soon after they paid the due amounts, electricity connection was restored.

“There is a provision to disconnect ordinary consumers within 60 days of nonpayment of power bills, why doesn’t the same rule apply to industrialists?” reads a joint statement issued by the NEA Employee Welfare Council and the NEA National Employees Union.

Similarly, the council also criticised the government for extending the instalment period for the industrial firms from 28 to 56 months and accused the government of discriminating between ordinary consumers and industrialists.

However, Minister Gurung has warned the authority’s employees not to disobey the government.

“NEA staffers must comply with the government’s decision,” Minister Gurung said at a press conference at the ministry on Monday. “The power cut in the industrial sector has affected the industrial firms and the economy, so power supply should be restored immediately.”

Besides deciding to restore power to the firms, the Cabinet meeting on Sunday also decided to implement the Lal commission’s report and to collect the overdue tariff within 15 days based on the readings of time of day (TOD) metres.

According to the NEA, the industrialists owe roughly Rs8.25 billion–Rs 6.65 billion plus a 25 percent fine. The authority first estimated that industrialists who used the exclusive feeder and trunk lines for energy owed almost Rs22 billion. However, the arrears were adjusted when the government-appointed commission’s advice was taken into account to resolve the disagreement.

On May 6, the commission under Girish Chandra Lal, a former Supreme Court justice, submitted its report on the resolution of the tariff dispute over dedicated and trunk lines to the erstwhile Dahal government. The commission had been formed to resolve the dispute over calculation of the amount of money the industrialists needed to pay the NEA for using power supply through dedicated and trunk lines from July 2015 to June 2020.

The government had made a special arrangement [dedicated] of power supply to the industrialists even as the NEA enforced hours-long power cuts for other consumers during the same period.

The Lal Commission suggested that for the period from January 2016 to April 2018 [when the country faced severe power shortages and rationing] tariffs for using dedicated and trunk lines should be determined based on the days and periods of electricity supply, as per the prescribed standards.

Based on the report, the Dahal government decided to adjust the outstanding amount, collect Rs6.65 billion, and impose a 25 percent fine.

On October 10, the NEA issued a 15-day ultimatum to 49 industrial firms to clear dues for the use of dedicated feeders and trunk lines. The ultimatum ended on October 24.

On the same evening, the authority disconnected power to 34 firms.

“Although the ultimatum was issued to 49 firms, six of them paid their instalments, the case of seven firms is sub judice, and two are government agencies. Therefore, the NEA only cut the power to 34 firms,” Chandan Kumar Ghosh, the spokesperson for the authority, told the Post.

At the NEA board meeting sometime earlier, it was decided that the power would be cut if the firms could not pay their dues within three months. “It would have been disrespectful to disregard the board’s decision,” Ghosh said.

Ghosh said that the NEA administration awaits the decision of the board of directors on implementing the Cabinet decision to restore power supply.

Minister for Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation Dipak Khadka, however, asserts that there was no need to convene a meeting of the NEA board to implement the Cabinet decision.

“As the Cabinet already has decided on the issue, the authority has to obey the decision, and the power supply will soon be restored,” the minister told media persons at his ministry on Monday. “The NEA board of directors is not above the Cabinet.”

NEA Executive Director Kul Man Ghising has been insisting that he would not withdraw his plan to collect dues without written instructions from the relevant state agencies.

The industrialists who have been refusing to pay the bills are demanding the implementation of the Lal Commission that the government made public on Monday.

“We don’t owe the NEA the amount claimed,” Pashupati Murarka, the head of Murarka Group, told the Post.