KATHMANDU, Jan. 19 (Xinhua) -- Electricity outage in Nepal on Saturday reached 14 hours a day totaling 97 hours in a week, making daily life difficult in the country.
With the onset of winter, rivers have dried up causing a low production of 425 MW only against the current demand of 1025 MW electricity in total.
In addition, electricity import from India which plummeted from 115 MW to 85 MW worsened the situation further.
"Low production coupled with slash in import are the main cause behind the expansion of the blackout hours," Bhuwan K Chhetri, chief of system operation department at Nepal Electricity Authority, was quoted as saying by the Kathmandu Post.
The government, a few months back, launched a Load-shedding Reduction Action Plan to ensure that power outage does not exceed 12 hours a day.
The action plan suggested measures such as increasing power import quantity from India, launching thermal plant and controlling pilferages, among others.
To this effect, there were plans to construct 400 KV Dhalkebar- Mujjaffarpur cross-border transmission lines, to generate at least 40 MW of energy from diesel plants and to bring 200 MW of additional energy from India.
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