Many factory owners have withheld rent they were supposed to pay to the industrial estate

Rajbiraj, June 3

Although a hotline service was introduced a year and a half ago to ensure regular power supply to Gajendra Narayan Singh Industrial Estate, the only industrial estate in Saptari, it still faces frequent and unpredictable power cuts.

Proprietor of Bhagawati Agriculture Tomato Food Industries Ramu Yadav said that although they had completed all preparations to start production, erratic power and water supply have forced them to halt their plans.

On his part, Gopal Bhandari, chief of the GNS Industrial Estate Management Office, bemoaned the apathy of the concerned authority towards their plight. “The industries here are at the receiving end of erratic power supply for quite long but the sad thing is nobody does anything, despite the fact that we’ve reported our problem to the hotline time and again,” said Bhandari.

“Many industrialists here have withheld rent they are supposed to pay to the industrial estate because of the power cuts, and now they are demanding a rent waiver, which will definitely affect the industrial environment here,” he added.

Ram Udgar Sah, chief of Nepal Electricity Authority distribution centre, Rajbiraj, however, clarified that there was no way they could exempt the industrial estate from power outages.

“We’ve done what we could. The estate is getting power from a separate industrial feeder line. But let me be clear here that, at a time when the entire country is reeling under load-shedding, those industries can’t keep demanding round-the-clock power supply,” he argued.

Sah said the current power disruption is partly because of fallen electricity poles and ruptured power cables after the gales recently.