Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) Managing Director Kulman Ghising has said that there would be no power outage during the Tihar festival when the demand for electricity would surge as everyone drapes their houses with strings of lights.

He expected that the demand for electricity during the Tihar festival would reach 1270 megawatt.

“There will be no problem even if the electricity demand spikes more than estimated during the festival,” he said, adding, “NEA is in a pretty comfortable position to meet the power demand for Tihar this year as compared to the last year.”

Responding to a journalist’s query during a press conference organised by the NEA on Wednesday, he said that electricity will be supplied uninterrupted during the second biggest festival of Nepal unless there are some technical glitches.

Ghising informed that the water level in Kulekhani reservoir has reached 1226 metre this year. In the normal time, water level in the reservoir reaches 1524 metre.

He said that the NEA will reap the benefit if the water level in the reservoir increases in the dry season.

Ghishing has been credited for ending load-shedding in the power-starved country with his policy to overhaul the hydropower generation system. Before his appointment as NEA Managing Director in September 2016, Nepal was bearing the brunt of power cuts up to 16 hours a day in the winter dry season.