Managing Director of Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) Kulman Ghising has admitted that TOD data of some industries may have been lost or misplaced.

Ghising, however, said that the NEA will collect the tariff for the discounted billing at any cost even if the TOD data of some industries are lost or misplaced.

Speaking at the Infrastructure Development Committee of the federal parliament on Tuesday, Ghising said, "It can be observed from the data of TOD whether the power supply in industries has exceeded 20 hours or not. We have also downloaded TOD data from various meters. Some of them may have been misplaced.”

"TOD should be downloaded for various purposes, its analysis should be done," he said. “However, the sole purpose of the TOD meter is to see how much electricity has been consumed at what time and issue tariff bills accordingly. As industries are charged different tariffs during peak time and off-peak time, TOD meters are kept by the NEA to know how many units of electricity are consumed at which time,” he added.

Ghising further said that the tariff will also be collected after getting it verified from the log sheet at the substation. However, the log sheet does not have the data of how long the power line was active in an industry, it only shows how long the line was connected in the transmission line.

There is a dispute between the industrialists and the NEA officials regarding the units of electricity consumed. However, Ghising said that the billing is recorded based on the number of units of electricity consumed.

“The units are available with us. Because they have paid their bills regularly. Each month's unit is recorded in our M-Power software. It is a bill issued by adding the dedicated surcharge to the unit,” he further said.

However, the industrialists have been saying that they do not consume more than 20 hours of electricity daily and when that happens, they cannot pay the fee for dedicated lines.

Earlier, due to COVID-19 pandemic and economic recession, the collection of tariffs was stopped at the request of industrialists, but it will not be stopped now, Ghising added.

Earlier, Ghising mentioned that the meeting of the Parliament's Public Accounts Committee gave a clear instruction to the NEA to issue the bill within one month and disconnect the power supply if it is not settled within 60 days.

Ghising maintained that the industrialists did not come for the payment of the bill, even though NEA informed them time and again for the settlement of their dues. He said that the TOD data of numerous meters have been downloaded and stored and some missing ones can also be recovered.