Once again the old malaise of brownouts shadows the region.
When winter comes to the highlands of Southasia, the demand for energy drives electric grids into breakdown and you have that dreaded term, load-shedding. In the summers, and on a scale much larger, 'brownouts' are a visitation upon the plains. VIP enclaves get privileged access, and well-to-do homes and businesses use inverters and generators. But for the rest, lifestyle adjustments are necessary.
In terms of the major metros, from what we know it is the citizens of Lahore, Kabul, Karachi and Kathmandu who have suffered the most this particular winter. While Karachi suffers about eight to ten hours brownouts daily, and Kabul and Lahore about 14, it is the capital of hydropower-rich Nepal that is today burdened with 16 hours of electricity outage. A recent visitor from Kathmandu to Calcutta and Dhaka – both cities that suffered much in the past – felt a sense of unreality when the lights just stayed on and on.
Load-shedding is an old malaise in Nepal that is back with a vengeance. It used to happen back in the 1990s, due to the government's inability to undertake anything more than one hydropower project at a time, rather than stay ahead of demand. When there was a sudden surge in demand, there was no choice but to pull the plug on vast areas of the country. The only thing that can be said for the brownouts conducted by the Nepal Electricity Authority today is that the lights go off and come on according to schedule, unlike the lackadaisical switching in most of the rest of the region.