Kathmandu: Nepal’s embattled king Gyanendra owes more than $460,000 in unpaid electricity bills, making him the Himalayan nation’s biggest power defaulter, a report said on Saturday.
The king, who faces an uncertain future with former Maoist rebels calling for the monarchy’s abolition, owes the money for electricity supplied to four royal palaces and bungalows since early 2005.
“We have been regularly sending cumulative electricity bills to the palace as well as to the royal relatives. None has responded, let alone paid,” the Kathmandu Post newspaper quoted an unnamed government source as saying. Gyanendra is in arrears to the tune of 30.5 million rupees ($462,000).
He owes 24.3 million rupees alone on the sprawling Narayanhiti Royal Palace which serves as his official residence and lies in the heart of the city.
The figures do not include the bills for his residences outside Kathmandu.
If the power costs of Gyanendra’s royal relatives were included, the total sum would come to “over 33 million rupees ($500,000) in unpaid electricity bills” up to January 2007, the official told the Kathmandu Post.
Gyanendra stopped paying his electricity bills when he seized absolute power in February 2005, saying he needed to crush a deadly Maoist insurgency. He was forced to abandon absolute rule in the face of an alliance between political parties and the Maoists who have now signed a landmark peace deal and formed a government.
The unnamed government official said the electricity board could not cut off power supply to the royals “considering their profile.”
Since being forced to end direct rule, Gyanendra has been stripped of most of his powers including his position as head of state of the impoverished nation.