Launching of Power Crisis Report and Documentary Film program was organized in Hotel Yak and Yeti , Kathmandu on November 23 rd , 2009, Monday. Hon'ble Dr. Prakash Sharan Mahat, minister for energy was the chief guest of the program.

Dr. Sandip Shah, IPPAN president, said in his welcome address that power crisis had affected adversely the socio-economic lives of Nepalese people and hoped that the present report and the documentary film on power crisis will initiate a debate among the Nepalese people regarding development of Nepal 's hydropower in a sustainable way.

Hon'ble Dr. Mahat launched the Power Crisis Report and Documentary Film, prepared by the Society of development Journalists (Sodej-Nepal) for IPPAN.

The power crisis report and documentary film was the outcome of the survey study carried out by IPPAN to assess the overall power crisis situation in Nepal, impacts of power crisis on the everyday life of Nepalese people, consumers' perspective, regarding power crisis problems and solutions and consumers' opinions regarding quality of power and possible role of private sector in the transmission and distribution of power.

The report has indicated that most of the consumers in urban areas are willing to pay more, if regular and reliable supply of power can be ensured. Also, majority of the respondents opined that privatization of transmission and distribution of power will lead to regular and reliable supply of power. According to the report, Nepal had to incur loss of 50 billion rupees in national productivity due to 16 hours long load shedding.

Mr. K.B.Bisht, while presenting power point presentation noted that the load shedding problem was a very serious problem in Nepal , demanding a sense of urgency and seriousness on the part of the government to solve the power crisis problem.

Hon'ble Dr. Mahat outlined the programs being undertaken by the government of Nepal to ensure that painful events like load shedding are not repeated in future. He listed measures like Tamakoshi – III, Trisuli III A and B, Pancheswor Multi Purpose Project, kabeli hydropower project, Rahughat hydropower project, thermal plant etc. He informed that attempts are being made to lessen the severity of impacts of load shedding, by importing power from India . He also mentioned the progress made in the direction of the construction of the high capacity cross border transmission line between Dhalkebar( Nepal ) and Mujjafarpur ( India ). Dr. Mahat also informed that the government is going to cancel the survey licenses of those who are just holding it, without doing anything specific in survey works.

Mr. Pradeep Raj Pandey, vice president of FNCCI said that the loss that Nepal incurred was already 40 billion Rupees due to load shedding. He further added that Nepal spent about 3 billion rupees to import inverters and generators last year. This amount of money was sufficient to generate 20 MW of power. He added that 1.5 billion rupees was spent additionally to import diesel to run generators. He stressed that the government should give priority to the generation of power, rather than importing power from India .