Chiefs of the regional offices and distribution centres of the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) are being asked to sign performance contracts setting goals for them in a bid to reduce loss and control leakage.

On Monday, managing director of the state-owned power utility Kulman Ghising signed a performance contract with Manoj Kumar Singh, chief of the NEA’s Nepalgunj regional office, to reduce electricity leakage by around 4 percentage points.

NEA Deputy Managing Director Hara Raj Neupane signed performance contracts with the chiefs of 16 distribution centres under the regional office with the same objective. Electricity leakage stood at 16.65 percent of the total supply of the Nepalgunj regional office at the end of the last fiscal year.

As per the performance contract signed with the NEA top management, the regional directors and distribution center chiefs are required to reduce leakage to 11.65 percent by the end of the current fiscal year. Apart from leakage reduction, officials at the regional offices have to cut administrative expenses, recover outstanding dues and provide high quality services to customers.

Officials achieving 50 percent of the targets set in the performance contract will be offered various cash and non-cash incentives. Likewise, officials achieving less than 50 percent of the targets will be considered inefficient and face action. As per the contract, the performance of the officials will be evaluated every four months.

According to Ghising, the power utility will sign performance contracts with the chiefs of other regional offices and distribution centres under them. “We will complete signing performance contracts with the chiefs of the eight regional offices and more than 100 distribution centre chiefs by the end of this fiscal year,” he said.

Although signing performance contracts is a new thing for NEA officials, it is standard practice for the managing director. The NEA’s managing director has to sign a performance contract with the Energy Ministry. Ghising himself has signed such an agreement, and if he fails to meet the targets stated in it, he could lose his job too.

Ghising’s predecessor Mukesh Raj Kafle had to resign after he failed to meet the goals stated in the performance contract he signed with the ministry. As per the performance contract signed between the ministry and Kafle, he had to score at least 50 percent during the annual evaluation. Kafle scored 45 percent and the ministry asked him to step down. One of the major reasons behind Kafle’s failure to meet the target was his inability to pass on the goal to his

subordinates.

Ghising, who is aware of what happened to the NEA’s previous chief, thought of introducing the performance contract plan to delegate responsibility to his subordinates so that he wouldn’t meet the same fate.