Kathmandu, Sept 16 — Newly appointed Minister for Energy, Water Resources, Irrigation, Physical Infrastructure and Transport, Kulman Ghising, wasted no time after assuming office at Singha Durbar on Monday afternoon. His first decision: instructing the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) to recover outstanding dues from dedicated and trunk line users.

Nearly eight years ago, Ghising made headlines by leading NEA to declare Nepal free from load-shedding — starting with major cities during Tihar in 2016, and achieving full nationwide power supply by April 2018 after almost 15 years of scheduled outages.

Now, he takes charge of the ministry at a time when the country faces mounting challenges in the energy sector — and his very first directive signals a tough stance on accountability and financial discipline.