Kathmandu, August 20 : Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has been able to accrue a profit of Rs 11.6 billion in the last fiscal year 2019/20.
According to the financial statement made public on the occasion of its 35th anniversary, the sate-run power utility made an accumulated profit of Rs 4.87 billion in the last FY. Likewise, it managed to earn Rs 1.47 billion, Rs 2.85 billion and Rs 9.81 billion in FY 2016/17, 2017/18 and 2018/19, respectively.
It is said that the leakage in the system has dropped to 15.27 percent in the last fiscal. In fact, such leakage has been going down continuously for the last four years. It, which had stood at 25.78 percent in FY 2015/16 ,was reduced to 22.9 percent in FY 2016/17, 20.45 percent in the FY 2017/18 and 15.32 in the FY 2018/19. With the average reduction of 11 percent electricity during the said period, NEA has managed to earn the profit of Rs 8 billion. The NEA also plans to reduce the total leakage of the system to less than 10 percent.
In the last fiscal, the share of electricity imported from India has decreased while the export percentage of the same to India has increased. Of the 7.74 billion units of energy available in the system last year, 22.34 percent was imported from India.
“When there used to be load-shedding for up to 14 hours a day in the country, about 35 percent of the total electricity consumption in the country had to be imported from India. But even when electricity consumption increased by about 80 percent, the ratio of imports was around 35 to 37 percent,” Ghising said. However, up to the last fiscal year, only 22 percent of the total available electricity has been imported.
According to the NEA, the import of power from the southern neighbour will be reduced to only 5 to 10 percent in the current FY. “Nepal will be fully self-sufficient in electricity and net export will start from FY 2021/22,” says Kulman Ghising, Managing Director, NEA.
