Nepal_Power Woes { 18 images } Created 5 Jan 2012
For the last several years, nearly 800,000 people of Kathmandu, Nepal's capital city, have faced up to 16 hours of blackouts every day.
The power outages, mainly caused by political instability, are so crippling that they're holding back the country's post-civil war economic growth.
During the decade-long Maoist insurgency, which ended in 2006, private investors shied away from investing because the rebels regularly attacked power plants. Even since then, the political parties haven't been able to reach an agreement to form an effective government and establish new Constitutions.
Nepal is said to be second only to Brazil in terms of water resources but the government has been incapable of harnessing hydropower and has only installed about 950MW of capacity, half of what the nation needs.
The power outages, mainly caused by political instability, are so crippling that they're holding back the country's post-civil war economic growth.
During the decade-long Maoist insurgency, which ended in 2006, private investors shied away from investing because the rebels regularly attacked power plants. Even since then, the political parties haven't been able to reach an agreement to form an effective government and establish new Constitutions.
Nepal is said to be second only to Brazil in terms of water resources but the government has been incapable of harnessing hydropower and has only installed about 950MW of capacity, half of what the nation needs.
