Culture of Load shedding and Bandh.

"Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness." Chinese proverb

The two most unpolularly popular term that we use in our daily life these days are “Bandh and Load shedding”. These two terminologies have made us miserable and uncertain about our everyday life and of our future. Both have become superfluous rituals, we are unable to get rid of. It could even be referred to as an infectious virus and the victims so loved by them, the common Nepalis, housewives, students, doctors, service holders, drivers, patients, small vendor, big industrialists all powerless spectators, unable to help themselves from getting infected. Nepal’s load shedding and Bandh are having an exceedingly negative effect on industry and the country’s economy as a whole, with losses running into millions if not billions of Rupees. Crises have already been declared in many of the Industries throughout the country. The load Shedding and Bandh is going to have a long term effect in country’s economy. Industry is however not the only ones frustrated with the constant power outages. Long power cuts have sucked the life out of Nepalese. The government has been ensuring that load shedding would be reduced from this month; however they have suddenly increased the schedule without even informing the people. Consumers already suffering from the sixteen hours of load shedding are in for additional dark hours. Mostly metropolitan residents have been badly affected by the load shedding, both in their personal lives and financially. Some people have taken a number of substantive actions to cope with load shedding, with those more likely to have acted being the more affluent by purchasing the equipment to alleviate the effects of load shedding like the inverters and the generators.
The power outages also created serious water shortages in many residential areas as residents could not run their pumps to fill their water tanks. People are also facing problems in ironing their clothes, which caused delays in reaching workplaces or most of the times they just hide the shirts inside their jackets. Many are not able to charge their mobile which further hampers the emergency calls. There are several cases of computer crash due to the load shedding in the organizations as well at homes. The financial impact of power outages on the local IT and Internet industries is difficult to measure, but the negative effects are clear to see for anyone involved in the field. The incidences of robbery and crimes have increased due to dark hours. Hospitals have stopped accepting emergency and injury cases due to the inability to operate their machines. The major sufferers are the students who are having hard time coping up with their exam and their career are affected by the continual load-shedding. Apart from the Industrial Sector, the tourism industry, which has been the backbone of its economy, is the most visible casualty of the power crisis as well as Bandh. The hotel and the restaurant owners are unable to keep up with the demands of power in their work which are pushing away the tourists further from visiting the country.
The paradox of Nepal’s crippling electricity scarcity is that after Brazil, its water resources are the second largest in the world, value an identified capacity of nearly 1,00,000 MW of hydro-power. However, the continual political interference has meant that almost none of that potential is being used. While the ruling Maoists are busy on blaming past governments’ policies for the present power crisis, the main opposition NC and UML blame the Maoists’ opposition to such mega-hydroelectric projects like the Arun III, Seti, Mahakali, and Melamchi. Nepal is emerging freshly from the 11 years of Maoist insurgency which dramatically affected the country’s socio-economic conditions on both the macro and micro levels. The two potential growth areas for Nepal are hydropower and tourism. The insurgency period saw a fall in tourist numbers, but following the comprehensive peace agreement tourist numbers have begun to increase. However, the constant load shedding and the several Bandhs have deep consequence in the number of tourists visiting the country.
If the government could cut down the electricity consumption in the offices of Prime Minister, other ministers and also at the homes and offices of top bureaucrats, may be the load shedding could be reduced to a considerable amount. As of now, we could only wait and pray for the day when Nepal is going to be the load shedding and Bandh free country, hope real soon.