[caption id="attachment_70662" align="alignright" width="840"] Photo RSS[/caption] By Our Reporter The meeting of the Public Accounts Committee of the Federal Parliament held on Sunday to address the outstanding electricity dues owed by industries to the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) ended without a resolution. Instead, a clear division was seen in the lawmakers representing the key House Committee. When Committee Chair Rishikesh Pokharel and UML lawmakers presented themselves to sack Kulman Ghising, Managing Director of the NEA, lawmakers from other parties including the Nepali Congress opposed the move. When Committee chair Pokharel, who is also from the CPN-UML,  proposed a six-point directive to tackle the issue, the meeting turned tense as the lawmakers objected to the included measures, including punitive actions against Ghising and referring the matter to the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA). The lawmakers exchanged heated arguments prompting Pokharel to postpone the meeting. Lawmakers from the CPN (Maoist Center), including Aman Lal Modi, strongly opposed the directive, arguing that it was introduced with malicious intent. They warned that they would not accept any decisions made under such circumstances and threatened to reject any attempt to impose the directive forcefully. Nepali Congress MPs also opposed the directive and asked Pokharel not to take any decision in haste. When lawmakers from the ruling party, NC also opposed the directive, Pokharel became helpless and adjourned the meeting. The directive proposed by the Committee chair included key actions such as instructing the relevant authorities to collect the Rs 21.88 billion in outstanding dues identified by the Auditor General, seeking explanations for why the recommendations made by the previous committee were not implemented, and issuing new directives to enforce those recommendations. The NEA has been trying to recover electricity dues from dozens of industries that used dedicated feeders and trunk lines to power their operations during the country’s severe electricity shortages. According to the Public Accounts Committee, these industries owe Rs 21.88 billion to the state-owned power utility. However, the Electricity Tariff Dispute Resolution Commission, led by former Supreme Court Justice Girish Chandra Lal, recommended that the NEA charge only Rs 6.41billion for the outstanding electricity tariffs from mid-January 2016 to mid-May 2018, plus a 25 percent fine. The commission argued that it would not be practical to charge the same rate for electricity used after the load-shedding period ended.