Nepal Infrastructure 
KATHMANDU: A joint team of relevant government and private sector agencies removed forty-eight trucks load of wires and equipment belonging to cable television, internet, and telephone service provider companies. Such wire and equipment were haphazardly installed on electric poles in the tourist area of Thamel. They were collected with a joint effort from the Thamel Tourism Development Council, Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA), and cable and internet service providers.
Kulman Ghising, Managing Director of the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA), said that the campaign has been launched to clean and beautify Thamel, a major tourist hangout, by replacing ugly electricity wires, and removing crooked and bent poles with new ones.
“The city has become ugly due to the unorganized tangle of wires. There have been reports of property damage due to short circuits, and our service delivery process has also been affected by this. In order to maintain the beauty of the main urban areas, the work of organizing the messy wires is being conducted all over the country,” said Ghising.
A high-level team including Managing Director Ghising, Deputy Executive Director of Distribution and Customer Service Directorate Manoj Silwal, and President of Thamel Tourism Development Council Bhavishwar Sharma monitored the work on Wednesday.
The NEA has started a campaign to remove and manage unorganized wires to beautify the Thamel area. The tourist area looks ugly due to the unnecessary optical fibers and equipment hanging randomly on the cable poles, which are placed in a haphazard manner using electrical poles.
After the tourists started taking photos of the wires lying on the electric poles and posting them on social media, the attention of the concerned authorities was drawn to their management. Last November, they gave a 45-day deadline for telecommunication, cable TV, and internet service providers to build and manage their structures to provide reliable electricity service by reducing electrical accidents, including fire, and also to maintain urban beauty in Thamel.
According to the NEA’s officials, the removal of unorganized wires and equipment in the Thamel area started in the first phase.
Ghising said that work is underway to make electrical structures underground in the Kathmandu Valley, Pokhara, and Bharatpur.
