Apropos of the news story “NAR to distribute first installment of grant” (THT, March 7, Page 10), it has been almost a year since the devastating earthquake and its aftershocks. Still, the earthquake victims of many districts are not facing the normalcy in their daily lives. Sweetly, the National Reconstruction Authority (NAR) is going to distribute some grants to the victims to rebuild houses. According to news story, it is providing such grants on three installments basis 25, 40 and 35 per cent respectively while rebuilding their houses. Needless to say that this grant will be facilitated them with technical know-how and designs, among others. However, some people from earthquake hit districts might say that this amount is too little for the sake of rebuilding purpose. Let’s be frank. It is said that ‘something is better than nothing’. We hope this amount will be utilized rather asking for extra money.

Saroj Wagle, Bara

Little progress

Apropos of the news story “It’s candle-light time for Nepal, warns NEA,” (THT, March 8, Page 8), sadly, Nepal has made progress by only one hour on load-shedding in the last 10 years. It was 12 hours power outage in 2006 as opposed to 13 hours in 2016. We sincerely hope that the country will do far better in 2026. Nepali people deserve far more candle-light time. Nothing has changed for the last 10 years if the news story of the ten years ago is anything to go by. Every time the government changes the concerned ministry comes up with a grandiose plan about ending perennial load-shedding along with the energy mix of solar, windmills and hydropower. On the other hand the government decides to buy energy from India which itself is suffering from power crisis. The state-owned energy monopoly, the Nepal Electricity Authority, is chiefly responsible for not meeting the domestic demand and controllinig power leakage. What can be said for sure is that the country will face the energy crisis unless the NEA’s structure is revamped and overhauled for the betterment. The NEA must be unbundled into three sections generation, transmission and distribution to generate more power required for the domestic consumption.The private sector should be given more incentive to attract more investment in power sector.

Manohar Shrestha, Kathmandu

Marvellous

It was really a marvellous performance by India which on March 6 which means on Sunday went on to trounce Bangladesh in the final of the ICC Asia Cup T20 tournament which was held by the losing country. Kohli and Dhawan were the one who worked hard for victories for their team which was the only strong favourite team throughout the contest. The match was being played at Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Dhaka, the capital of the country. Both Kohli and Dhawan looked in strong form for the team which had really worked hard right from the beginning.

Pratik Shrestha, Kathmandu