KATHMANDU: Brace yourself for prolonged power cut this winter. The UML-led coalition does not have any concrete plan to tide over the outage woes.

The situation was particularly worse last year. The public had to put up with 18 hours of load-shedding daily. The then Maoist-led government had formulated short, medium and long term plans to tackle the crisis.

As of now, the daily outage is around one and half hours, which will gradually increase in the coming weeks.

Though there was a ray of hope that the government would implement the action plan to lessen the power woes, little work has been done over the past few months to resolve the

annual problem.

Minister for Energy Dr Prakash Saran Mahat said that the government was looking at various options to minimise the daily power shortage.

For instance, a nationwide Compact Fluorescent Lamp (CFL) campaign was launched last year. But the drive failed to yield desired results.

“Popularising CFL didn’t help much. In fact, the power cut came down by only 12 minutes,” said the minister.

But consumers are more or less happy with the CFL since it helped decrease their electricity bills.

The two-pronged strategy to set up a new thermal plant and maintenance of an old multi-fuel plant, which are located at Biratnagar and Hetauda, is still in a limbo.

Faced with the grim situation, the minister spelt out his priorities.

“We plan to repair two multi-fuel plants in Biratnagar and Hetauda. We’ll import two thermal plants from Germany as well,” he added.

The government has urged Germany to provide two thermal plants, which can produce around 100 MW. But if all procedures are to be followed, then it will take at least a year for the imported thermal plants to be installed. An unfazed Dr Mahat aims to set up new thermal plants in industrial areas like Birgunj and Hetauda. Production in industrial units virtually comes to a standstill during winter due to prolonged power cut.

The Maoists had tried to woo private investors to pump in money in hydro-electricity projects. But the then government’s rate on offer was far less than the competitive market price across South Asia. No wonder the private investors stayed away.

The nation can look at importing power from neighbouring India. But lack of sufficient transmission lines has thrown a spanner in the works. Nepal is importing 50 MW from India. Plans are afoot to get another 90 MW.

“We’re dispatching a team to India to seal a deal for purchasing power at market rate,” said Dr Mahat.

If the government fails in its endeavour to repair the multi-fuel plants and import electricity from India, then the crisis will deepen in the coming weeks.

Despite the overwhelming odds, the minister claimed that maximum power cut would not be more than 12 hours daily this winter.

A senior Nepal Electricity Authority official felt that Kulekhani hydel project could be only saviour in these power-starved times. The level of water in the reservoir in Kulekhani is believed to have gone up as compared to the past.

The minister reasoned that last year’s woes were due to the Koshi floods, which had destroyed the transmission line with India.

To top it all, low investment, growing corruption and pilferage have compounded the problem.

The authorities maintained that there would little respite in the coming years, thanks to the absence of a contingency plan.