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Businesses in Ilam, particularly those involved in tea and dairy production, have been facing difficulties for a long time due to an unreliable electricity supply. Entrepreneurs say that frequent power cuts in a single day have caused problems with machinery installed in industries.

Business owners have complained that repeated power cuts have severely affected dozens of small and large enterprises, including tea factories, dairy industries, milk chilling centres, cheese production units, lollipop factories, grill industries and poultry farms, especially those operating in northern Ilam.

Dinesh Rasaili, manager of Himalayan Sangrila Tea Industry based in Sakhejung, said irregular electricity supply has made it extremely difficult to produce high-quality teas such as white, golden, ruby, green and green pearl varieties.

“Every second is important when producing such teas. A continuous power supply is essential, and it is not possible to immediately run generators whenever electricity goes off while making these types of tea. This has caused us losses worth millions of rupees,” Rasaili said. “Sometimes there is no electricity, sometimes low voltage and sometimes high voltage, which has also damaged our machines.”

Jivan Neupane, proprietor of Prastuti Tea Industry in Ilam-2, said that although the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) may consider irregular power supply a normal issue, it has become a major crisis for industries, businesses and farmers.

“This problem is not limited to industrialists and business owners; it is also connected with small farmers and school-going children. Farmers depend on their income to run their households and educate their children,” Neaupane said.

According to him, businesses also have to pay small farmers after producing and selling their products. If production stops and industries cannot collect tea leaves and milk from farmers, the impact reaches poor and small farmers.

Frustrated by frequent power disruptions, business owners submitted memoranda on Tuesday to the Ilam Distribution Centre of the NEA, the District Administration Office and Ilam Municipality, demanding a regular electricity supply. The memorandum stated that the production of high-quality tea from Ilam has been affected due to unreliable electricity.

They also said that transformers installed to supply electricity to industries have been damaged. The entrepreneurs urged the NEA to provide prior notice and set a fixed schedule if power cuts are necessary, rather than abruptly interrupting supply for a few minutes in the name of maintenance. They also demanded that the Sandakpur and Sakhejung feeders be separated.

Receiving the memorandum, Rewat Kumar Chaudhary, chief of the NEA Ilam Distribution Centre, said the problem was caused by damage to electricity distribution lines due to last year’s natural disasters. He said work is under way to separate the Sandakpur and Sakhejung feeders in the northern region, but it will take some time to complete.

Rabin Rai, general secretary of the Central Tea Cooperative Federation, said millions of kilograms of freshly plucked green tea leaves are being wasted due to irregular electricity supply, affecting the production of quality tea.

“Tea exports to India had finally started gaining momentum, but the inability to process tea properly due to power supply problems has created additional challenges,” Rai said. “Industries operated through bank loans are also struggling to pay interest on their loans.”

By Kokila Dhakal