Panmaya Magar, a resident of Dhungre, Udayapurgadhi Rural Municipality-4, cooks food before it gets dark in the evening. Because there is no electricity in her house to cook food at night. Both Panmaya, 58, and her 63-year-old husband, Burjaman Magar, cannot speak. They are financially weak and do not have the money to install a solar panel at home. Ludri Magar, 48, also does not have a solar panel at home. When they have to walk around at night, they use a torch, a bamboo stick, and a pine cone.

Like Panmaya and Ludri Magar, 55 households in Dhungre are now living in darkness.

‘I would have been so happy if I had seen the flickering electricity in the village without dying, but now my hope has started to die,’ laments 79-year-old Hom Bahadur Magar. He wants to play with his grandchildren in the light of electricity. ‘Would my eyesight, which was getting dim, have shone brightly when I saw the light of electricity?’ he says.

The plan to provide electricity to all the settlements of Udayapurgadhi Rural Municipality through community electrification began in 2076 BS. However, even after 6 years, electricity has not reached all the settlements of the municipality. Dhungre and Dumre in Ward 4, Saipa, Sano Ratmate, Mabate, Pani Ghatta, and Lapse in Ward 3 have not reached electricity.

Even though the campaign to provide electricity through rural community electrification has been launched, electricity has not reached many settlements in Wards 3 and 4 of Udayapurgadhi Rural Municipality. Even though the work of burying poles and laying wires for the main line has been completed for years, the work of expanding branch wires and poles, installing transformers and distributing meter boxes is still pending.

‘We have collected Rs 12,000 to Rs 30,000 per family and handed them over to the rural municipality three years ago, but the electricity supply is still not decided,’ said Arjun Bahadur Ale Magar of Dhungre, Udayapurgadhi Rural Municipality-4. ‘When the electricity supply was announced, all the villagers helped the contractor in burying poles and laying wires, but now no representative of the construction company has come to the village.’

Due to the negligence of the contractor, 250 households in Wards 3 and 4 have been forced to live in the dark until now, says Man Bahadur Kepchaki, Chairman of Udayapurgadhi Rural Municipality. ‘Waiba Construction started work for community electrification in 2076 and has already provided electricity to other wards, while the second company left the work in the middle and disappeared,’ he said. He said that the Community Electrification Department under the Nepal Electricity Authority was requested to terminate the contract after the contractor did not come in contact.’

Divisional Engineer Nandakishore Mandal of the Nepal Electricity Authority said that even though the contract with the contractor company Sunita & Kabita Construction has been completed for 2 years, the work is being carried out at a rate of 0.5 percent of the contract amount per day. ‘The contractor has been instructed repeatedly to complete the work on time, explanations have been asked repeatedly, and fines have been deducted at the time of payment. If there is further delay in the work, we will cancel the contract,’ he said.