Nepal's Cabinet confirmed Dirghayu Kumar Shrestha as the permanent Managing Director of the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) on Friday, formalizing a role he had already been holding in an acting capacity since May.
Shrestha joined NEA in 1997 as a seventh-level officer and has spent almost 30 years across various technical and managerial roles within the authority, most recently as Deputy Executive Director at the Distribution and Customer Services Directorate. He holds a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering and a master's in Information and Communication Engineering. Government spokesperson Sasmit Pokharel confirmed the Cabinet's decision.
Since taking over in an acting role, Shrestha has already been overseeing one of the most demanding periods in NEA's recent history: restoring energy infrastructure damaged across the Bhote Koshi-Trishuli river system, where floods caused an estimated Rs 151 billion in hydropower-sector losses and left multiple projects' tunnels the site of ongoing search and recovery operations for trapped workers.
Energy-sector stakeholders had reportedly hoped the eventual permanent leadership would focus on improving power distribution, expanding transmission capacity, and strengthening the authority's finances priorities that now fall to Shrestha to deliver on with full authority rather than an acting mandate.
