Yesterday evening, as I was walking past New Road, I could see a number of generators lined up on the pavement, hardly leaving any place for the pedestrians.

Nepal has been facing acute shortages for three basic things: petroleum products, electricity and water. Adding to this, garbage, pollution, and over- population are also on the hit-list.

Today, we have once a week water supply for two hours, electricity for eight hours, and perpetual short supply of petroleum products. The water supply has been irregular. People need to be vigilant when the water supply will be next time. Big factories, commercial banks, stores have to add financial burden and cost by installing heavy cost thermal plants. Also, we tend to close our shops and workstations just because we have to stand in a queue to fill up the empty tanks and to get a cylinder of cooking gas.

 Some of the remedies I figured out are as listed below:

1. Opt for watershed management, which is the rational utilization of land and water resources for optimum production.
2. Promote afforestation.
3. Entertainment of alternate sources of energy like solar energy, hydropower, wind energy, geo-thermal energy. This will not only reduce our dependence on petroleums but also minimize air pollution.  Go for under-ground water and rain water harvesting.
4. Use of pressure cookers for cooking which can save both time and fuel.
5. Turning off the lights, fans, and air conditioners when not required. Also we can save some money by using renewable energy efficiently.
6. Allow natural light to enter in our houses as much as possible which helps to save electricity.
7. Introduce and entertain recycling and composting.

We now excel in living with shortages of everything: from solar home lighting to bio-gas, electric vehicles to organic agriculture. Also, I read in a research paper that we are bound to welcome the load-shedding at least till 2020.


http://www.parakhi.com/blogs/2012/06/05/short-age-rules-modern-age