Nepal, July 2 -- Nepal has made remarkable progress in expanding access to electricity. If government figures are anything to go by, around 97 percent of the country now has power, which deserves recognition. But this success has come with a disturbing cost. Every year, hundreds of people across the country fall victim to electrocution, with many of the incidents proving fatal. A study of Nepal Police records covering July 2014 to July 2019 documented 2,267 electrical injury incidents in five years, of which 59.1 percent resulted in death.

A report compiled by the National Human Rights Commission paints an equally alarming picture. It records 449 deaths from electric shock over a five-year period. The number of survivors left with lifelo...