Kathmandu, August 17

Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) was able to significantly reduce its loss in the last fiscal to Rs 978 million as compared to Rs 8.89 billion in the previous fiscal through increase in retail tariff, higher energy availability in the system and leakage control.

NEA has achieved encouraging growth in total revenue from the sales of electricity amounting to Rs 46.14 billion in the last fiscal, which is 45 per cent higher compared to the sales of fiscal 2015-16 that stood at Rs 31.82 billion. The power utility also earned Rs 4.08 billion from non-core business activities, like surcharge, dividend, interest and lease rent, among others in last fiscal.

Meanwhile, regarding its expenses, the power utility’s power purchase cost increased by 27.43 per cent in fiscal 2016-17 as compared to the previous fiscal. NEA spent Rs 28.46 billion on power purchase from its gross income of Rs 50.22 billion. However, it has said the quantum of energy supplied also increased by 34.76 per cent in fiscal 2016-17.

NEA’s transmission cost in the last fiscal also went up to Rs 1.9 billion as compared to Rs 1.09 billion in 2015-16 as the wheeling charge for power import via Dhalkebar-Muzaffarpur cross-border transmission line surged.

NEA said that it has improved its performance since last fiscal in terms of electricity sales, power supply and financial results. NEA succeeded to increase supply of energy in the distribution system to 6,257.73 gigawatt hours by improving its own power plants and adding more purchased energy from independent power producers and India.

According to NEA, domestic consumers continued to be the largest consumer category with 93.96 per cent share of the total consumer base. However, contribution to the gross revenue by domestic consumers stood at only 41.85 per cent.

On the other hand, industrial consumer category held only 1.42 per cent share in terms of entire consumer volume but contributed 35.6 per cent of the gross revenue in the last fiscal.

During the year, NEA’s consumer base increased from 2.97 million to 3.26 million, including community and bulk buyers.

Though NEA was able to improve its financial health last fiscal, its accumulated losses still stand at Rs 30.39 billion. The power utility has huge receivable dues from government offices and local bodies, which amounted to Rs 14.43 billion at the end of last fiscal.

Meanwhile, the government has instructed the Ministry of Finance to clear previous dues that need to be paid by the local bodies for up to last fiscal and also directed NEA to recover the electricity bill directly from the local bodies.

NEA has also made significant investments in various projects related to generation, transmission and distribution, and cumulative investment in such projects reached Rs 83.94 billion. Similarly, its investment in subsidiaries, associates, joint ventures and others reached Rs 25.35 billion.