With the recent blackout in the US and Canada, officials here have been encouraged to slack off even more than usual. The Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) seems to say: "When it can happen even in the US, so what if we get a few power cuts here?"

Not that the NEA doesn't have a good excuse for erratic electricity: this year's monsoons have damaged the Marsyangdi power plant and transmission lines. "The windy and rainy weather trips the system during the monsoon. That happens especially when branches of trees touch transmissions wires," says the NEA's Mrigendra Pradhan. "It takes time for us to reach areas where the transmission or distribution systems are out
of order, which is why power outages last so long."

Fair enough, but power pundits say the imbalance in NEA's planning, generation, transmission and distribution are also to blame. There has been significant increase in power generation in recent years, thanks in part to private power producers, but the state of transmission and distribution systems, still monopolised by NEA, continues to be unreliable. NEA officials admitted the transmission system was so poor and obsolete that they were unable to cope with the increased flow of power from two private power producers, the 60MW Khimti and 36MW Bhotekosi.