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Where folks spend Rs 500 just to pay electricity tariff of Rs 80

DILIP POUDEL
BAGLUNG, Aug 10: How do you feel if you have to buy a two-way bus ticket that costs around Rs 500 just to reach the district headquarters to pay monthly electricity tariff of Rs 80?
Thousands of people, especially from villages such as Kushmishera, Binamare, Damek, Sarkuwa, Arjewa, Jaidi, Chhisti, Rangkhani, Raydanda, Amalachaur, Narayansthan and Painyupata VDCs in southern remote belt of the district, are compelled to live with this irony- as the Nepal Electricity Authority has no revenue collection centers in the region.
The residents of Kushmishera VDC, the southernmost part of the district are affected the most as they are compelled to pay up to Rs 500 to reach the district headquarters just to pay the bill.
And if they do not make it on time-that is before the NEA´s revenue counters close-they will have to bear the extra burden of lodging and food.
The Secretary of Kushmishera VDC Durga Prasad Sharma complains that their repeated appeals to the state-run authority to open a counter in the VDC have fallen on deaf ears.
No wonder only Hatiya among 33 VDCs in the district has a revenue collection counter of the NEA.
“How could the NEA be so blind to the people´s woes,” fumes Sharma.
So what´s wrong with the NEA?
“We are short of manpower to extend our service,” says the district chief of the NEA Bishnu Prasad Yadav. “As of now we only have 35 staff; we need as much as 70 persons to reach out to these villages.”
He goes on: “We had proposed a mobile revenue collection counters to cover the remote villages, but even this proposal could not materialize due to the manpower crunch. At times we don´t even have enough technicians to repair a simple snag like short circuits.”
Sarbajit KC, an employee of NEA Banglung, adds that they have been repeatedly urging the central office in Kathmandu to supply more staff to ease the situation-but to no avail.

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