The conflict between Minister for Energy, Water Resources, and Irrigation Deepak Khadka and Nepal Electricity Authority Executive Director Kulman Ghising refuses to die down.

Relations between the ministry and the power utility have deteriorated since the formation of the KP Sharma Oli-led government in July last year. On Tuesday, Minister Khadka, speaking in the House of Representatives, accused Ghising of trying to work arbitrarily.

Minister Khadka said Ghising was disobeying the government.

“The government will not stand idly by,” Khadka said. “It will rein in Ghising’s arbitrary activities.”

Due to the acrimony between the government and the NEA, industrialists owe at least Rs8 billion in tariff arrears.

While Suresh Acharya, secretary at the energy ministry, blames the authority for its failure to collect the arrears on time, officials at the power utility say they are working to collect dues.

The Council of Ministers on November 10 directed the NEA to collect the outstanding amounts within 15 days, but it failed to do so, Acharya said.

In January last year, the Pushpa Kamal Dahal government formed a commission under Girish Chandra Lal, former Supreme Court justice, to recommend ways to resolve the tariff dispute.

The Lal Commission submitted its report to the Dahal government on May 6; the report was released by the Oli government on November 11.

The commission recommended that, for the period from January 2016 to April 2018, when the country faced severe power shortages and rationing, tariffs for using the exclusive arrangement should be determined based on the prescribed standards for days and hours of electricity supply.

But while the NEA wants to charge tariffs based on Time of Month (ToM) meter, Acharya claims industrialists want ToD meters to be followed. Saying that power supply to industries was classified into three shifts during the load-shedding days, they want ToD (Time of Day) meters to be studied before paying the bill.

“To resolve the conflict, the ministry formed the committee to study the ToD billing, but NEA refused to cooperate and that has delayed the payment of arrears,” Acharya said.

The authority has repeatedly cut power to industrial firms due to their failure to pay up.

The NEA on October 24 last year had decided to deny power to dozens of industrial firms with pending bills. However, citing the country’s sluggish economy, the government insisted on restoring power to those firms.

With a 15-day deadline given to firms to clear dues as per the Council of Ministers’ decision on November 10 last year, the NEA, on November 12, had replugged power supply. But the firms ignored the deadline.

When the NEA was again supposed to impose power cuts, the government ordered the authority to wait for the report to be submitted by a three-member committee investigating the billing dispute over dedicated feeders and trunk lines.

The committee announced by Energy Minister Khadka is headed by former member of the National Planning Commission Arvind Kumar Mishra, with former NEA official Shree Ram Pandey and chartered accountant Sujan Kaphle as members.

Although the committee was formed some three months ago, it has yet to start working effectively, says one of its members.

“We have asked the Electricity Regulatory Board and the NEA for related data. While the board has provided it, the NEA is yet to do so,” Pandey said. “Once we get the data related to the billing dispute over dedicated feeders and trunk lines, we will start our work in earnest.”

The power utility is not cooperating with the investigation, even as the government waits for the committee report for arrears collection.

But NEA chief Ghising, along with two other NEA board members, has been objecting to the formation of the committee, questioning its legality and has even filed a ‘note of dissent’ at the NEA board meeting.

After Minister Khadka proposed using NEA funds to meet the committee's expenses related to wages, operational expenses, and vehicles at the NEA board meeting on December 19, Ghising, along with the two other members, questioned the committee’s validity.

NEA officials say Ghising and the members are demanding the committee should either have been formed through a regulatory authority or the judiciary.

But Acharya, the energy secretary, says the NEA has no authority to raise legal questions about the committee as it was formed based on a Cabinet decision.

“Neither the NEA chief nor the board have the right to question a Cabinet decision,” Acharya said.