India to export 145 MW electricity to Nepal

The Dollar Business Bureau

India said on Thursday that it would export extra electricity of 145 MW to Nepal through the newly built two cross-border transmission lines, few days after Nepal requested for more electricity to cope with the severe load-shedding.

“Export of power to Nepal is expected to increase by around 145 MW shortly through two 132 kV transmission lines," Indian Embassy said in a statement.

Last month, construction of the two cross-border transmission lines was completed. These are Katiya- Kusaha and Raxual-Parwanipur cross-border. Soon after the construction completed, Kathmandu requested New Delhi to provide power via these two transmission lines.

Recently, Ambassador of Nepal to India, Deep Kumar Upadhyay, prodded the Indian Power Minister Piyush Goyal to speed up the process.

A team from Nepal's Electricity Authority will visit India soon to finalise the details with regard to tariff and modality of trade of electricity between the two nations, according to some officials.

"Last year, exports of electricity to Nepal have surged by about 145 MW with the construction of transmission lines of Muzaffarpur in India and Dhalkhebar in Nepal," said the officials.

"This is the first time that India has become a net exporter of electricity from the net importer,” according to the Power Ministry.

India exports about 190 MW of electricity to Nepal through 12 cross-border interconnections at 132kV, 33kV and 11kV level.