By Our Correspondent
Urlabari, Feb. 13: A dispute has erupted over a plan of erecting electricity transmission poles from the Damak Distribution Centre of Nepal Electricity Authority to the under-construction substation at Urlabari-4.
The dispute started after a family of Athiyawari of Urlabari-8 did not allow NEA to erect the poles in a private road they had opened.
Phulmaya Baraili of the family said, "We have opened a 12 feet road for our convenience. The private road is not in the map. We will not allow our land to be devalued by installing the electricity poles in our private road.”
She also said that the bank would refuse to take the land as collateral when a high speed power line passed through it.
“I needed about Rs. 4.5 million to send my son to Australia. But the bank denied to provide me the loan by keeping land as collateral,” she said.
Chairman of Urlabari-8 Kul Bahadur Karki said that electricity could not be transmitted after the Baraili family objected to the plan.
He said that there was an option to bring the electricity transmission pole from the side of the government road.
Nepal Electricity Authority's Urlabari Distribution Centre is distributing electricity from its own substation.
The NEA's system strengthening project in 19 kattha of land in Urlabari-4 has reached the final stage of substation construction, and the power distribution process is moving ahead.
“As soon as the dispute gets resolved, we will distribute electricity from our own substation,” said Digambar Yadav, chief of Urlabari Distribution Centre.
The NEA has set up four distribution centres in Morang, and Urlabari Distribution Centre has been distributing electricity to Damak Distribution Centre till now.
Transmitting electricity from a distance tends to be 'low voltage'.
Yadav, chief engineer of the distribution centre, said that the problem of low voltage would end once the construction of the substation with a capacity of eight MVA was completed.
According to Yadav, there are 42,000 customers under the Urlabari distribution centre.
The Urlabari Centre has distributed electricity to Urlabari, Pathari Shanischare Municipality, Miklajung Municipality and three wards of Ratuwamai Municipality.
Engineer Yadav said that if the substation could not be operated in the dry season, there would be problems in power supply in the hilly villages of Miklajung and the southern villages of Pathari Shanishchhare Municipality.
He said that load-shedding could occur if the substation was not brought in operation.