Kathmandu: Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has been successful in reducing the leakage in the system to 14.35 percent in the first four months of the current fiscal year 2021/22. NEA has managed to reduce the leakage of the system from 17.18 percent in the last fiscal year by 2.83 percentage points to 14.35 percent in the last four months of the current fiscal year through regular campaigns for power supply and control of technical and non-technical leakages.

Of the leakage in the system till mid-November, 9.24 percent is from distribution and the rest is from transmission and production. As of mid-November last year, the leakage in distribution was 12.01 percent. Compared to the four months of last year, the leakage in distribution this year is 2.77 percentage points less.

NEA has set a target to reduce electricity leakage to 15.5 percent in the current fiscal year. NEA Managing Director (MD) Kulman Ghising said that the target would be achieved in the remaining period of the current fiscal year as the leakage was less than the target in the first four months.

NEA had reduced the leakage of electricity by 25.78 percent in FY 2015/16 to 15.25 percent in FY 2019/20. However, in FY 2020/21, the leakage had increased by 1.91 percentage points and reached 17.18 percent.

MD Ghising said that the leakage control campaign has been carried out effectively, increasing the capacity of substations, adding conductors, replacing overloaded transformers and encouraging the use of three-phase meters.

He said that the work has been carried out to reduce the leakage from the target set for the current year by increasing the power supply in the industries and making the leakage control campaign more powerful and effective.

"For non-technical leakage control, theft control, strict collection of tariff arrears, strict action against those who steal electricity by bypassing and hooking up, replacing closed meters, encouraging people to take meters, identifying and reading customers without meter reading (stock unit) has been carried out as a campaign," he said, adding: "We have been able to reduce leakages with the help and support of everyone, including the managers of distribution and customer service and the day and night staff, the administration staffers, even when our employees have been attacked in many places while controlling theft."