It's a Friday evening in the home of Chandra Bahadur Thapa, his wife and their three grown-up and teenage children.
As in many Nepalese homes there is a small Hindu shrine in the corner. There's also a picture of David Beckham, a panorama of the Annapurna mountains and some mathematical tables pinned on the wall.
In their cramped accommodation - just two rooms - television is good entertainment, and four of them huddle on the bed to watch.
Then, punctually at 2000 local time, the lights and the TV go out. There are groans and laughter. Fumbling for matches and candles follows - now a regular routine given the new, swingeing power cuts.
This is an extract from a longer article on the BBC website today and you can read the full story here Nepal Becomes A Land of the Blackout
1 comment:
Basically, powercuts in Nepal was not inevitable (though the politicians like to claim that). The kulekhani hydropower project, as per my thoughts, was a complete waste of resources, economy and time.
To add to the powercuts, another huge crisis coming up for the people in Kathmandu is "drinking water". As it is, all we Kathmanduites dont have much access to unlimited drinking water; we are provided drinking water at unimaginable times, that too we need electric motors to pump it in the water storage tanks. Now with the loadshedding, many times we cant get access to water as it cannot be pumped. EX. the drinking water corporation opens the water pipes to my locality on every alternate days at 3:00 am. Now, we have electricity at 3 am only on friday because of loadshedding. this means, we will have access to water only once in two weeks.
The question that has been raised by the locals is : either the electricity authority should supply electricity to every locality when the drinking water corporation supplies water or viceversa.
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