Nepal becomes land of the blackout

It's a Friday evening in the home of Chandra Bahadur Thapa, his wife and their three grown-up and teenage children.

As in many Nepalese homes there is a small Hindu shrine in the corner. There's also a picture of David Beckham, a panorama of the Annapurna mountains and some mathematical tables pinned on the wall.

In their cramped accommodation - just two rooms - television is good entertainment, and four of them huddle on the bed to watch.

Then, punctually at 2000 local time, the lights and the TV go out. There are groans and laughter. Fumbling for matches and candles follows - now a regular routine given the new, swingeing power cuts.

Low water

The Thapas, like everyone else, are this winter having to cope with severe and unprecedented electricity cuts of 14 or 16 hours a day, up from just six hours last year. It is the first winter under the new government led by the Maoist former rebels

Although only 40% of this rugged country's population is connected to the electricity grid, in urban areas people are used to having power on tap and much of life revolves around using it.
Eighteen-year-old Tika and Suraj, 16, bring out their homework, which they tackle on a mattress on the floor. Tika says working by flickering candlelight is hard on the eyes.

"I am a computer student," she says. "I don't have a computer at my home so I have to work in college, but due to load-shedding [power theft] I couldn't do my practical. Last week was my exam, I had to study but I couldn't do well."

Dinner is cooked on a gas stove and eaten by candlelight.

There are many reasons for power scarcity in Nepal. One is starkly evident at a peaceful spot in the hills south of Kathmandu - Kulekhani.

Here lies Nepal's only hydroelectric reservoir, fed by more than 30 rivers and streams. The crispy fish served in a local cafe is delicious. But after insufficient rain in 2008 the water is very low, the earlier dry-season level looking like a kind of scar around the perimeter.

An hour's drive onwards is the linked power station, where schoolchildren are being given a tour of the works. But all is not well. One of the two turbines is out of order - its poor state the result of long-term neglect, I was told.