BAJURA, JANUARY 18

Members of Bajura's civil society today padlocked the Nepal Electricity Authority office demanding expansion of power supply in the district.

After padlocking the office, civil society members, mostly youths, held a rally in Martadi bazaar calling for expansion of electricity and regular supply of power. The rally also reached Tribeni Small Hydropower office and staged a sitin there.

'As our demand for expansion of electricity and regular power supply went unheard, we had to padlock even the small hydropower project office,' said civil society member Surendra Nath, adding that the lockout would continue until a guarantee for linking Martadi to the national power grid was given.

The civil society, that had submitted a memorandum to the district administration office regarding their demands, has now started a series of agitation citing the apathy of the NEA and the administration to get their demands met.

Civil Society leader Gopal Karki lamented that the local NEA office hadn't done anything in the past three years except installing electricity poles. 'It's been three years, but the NEA office here hasn't done anything other than installing utility poles in all these precious years after it was set up. So we aren't going to back off until we get assurances and concrete plans from the higher up ensuring reliable electricity for us from the national power grid,' Karki said.

Another local civil society leader Buddhisingh Bogati Bhote lamented that people in the district headquarters Martadi were having to put up with 10 hours of daily loadshedding. 'Small hydel projects such as Tribeni aren't enough, so what we need is to be linked to the national power grid so that we can get reliable supply of power,' he said.

The locals here have accused the government and state power authority of abandoning the people in Bajura by not doing anything even one-and-a-half-years after testing the extended electricity line.

A version of this article appears in the print on January 19, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.