Navya.

Rural Electrification is generally the process of providing access of affordable electricity to the people residing in rural areas by extending the existing grid distribution system. Most of the rural people of Nepal are still deprived from the use of electricity which is one of major impediment to economic development.There are different reasons behind this such as market uncertainty, problem of affordability due to low rural income, greater electricity losses due to long distance, expensive customer support and equipment maintenance, etc. Implementing RE in rural areas of poor countries like Nepal are often disadvantages due to the high cost of providing this service in few number of consumers scattered in larger area, remote places with difficult terrain and low consumption.

Countries around the world are pursuing RE schemes with determination, mindful of the positive impacts it can have on their citizens. Conventional economic criteria for judging investments are not thought appropriate for RE. There can be large non-monetary benefits that can be achieved afterwards such as helping poor, rural development, reducing rural-urban migration, enabling of improved literacy rate, general contribution to political stability, pre-requisite to other development and productive activities, increased use in school and hospital, street lighting, creation of new business etc. The rural people will have access to use of recent and advanced technology, income benefits through new opportunities of work, increased agricultural productivity and time saving from household chores which can be used for leisure and productive activities. The conventional way of using energy (firewood, kerosene, batteries, fossil fuels, etc.) can be reduced thereby improving indoor air quality and health outcomes.

In order to facilitate and support the rural people, Nepal Government together with the national utility, Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA), initiated a first pilot area for grid extension, where the community contributed 20% of the total investment cost for extension and remaining 80% by the government.Recognized as a successful vehicle for rural electrification, the Community Rural Electrification Programme (CREP) was officially launched in 2003/04. Recently, the community contribution has been reduced to 10% of the total project cost. TheCREP model was first developed in the USA in the 1930s. In Asia, Bangladesh was the first country to establish CREP model. In this model of rural electrification, community gets participate to promote, direct and manage the distribution.Community Participatory based RE was found to be effective and widely accepted, as it develops an increased sense of social responsibility, income generation, ease in handling the issues and problems, builds relationship and social connectedness, sustainability, equitable distribution of development benefits, interaction with professionals and so on. The Community Rural Electrification Department (CRED), a department within NEA which is authorized to manage the programme, then initiates a survey and cost estimate for the grid-extension.

In Nepal, there is increasing rate of communities connected with NEA to go through CREP model. The unit charge provided to communities based Rural Electrification is cheaper. NEA sells bulk electricity to the communities handing over the responsibility for tariff collection, administration, accounting, operation and maintenance thereby reducing theprobability of revenue loss by far. Seeing that the programme is a successful instrument for further grid-extension and thus rural electrification, the government has not terminated the programme’s lifespan. It is expected that CREP will continue for a number of more years.

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