20 February, Kathmandu: The tenth meeting of the Nepal-India Energy Secretary’s joint directors’ committee made decisions on the expansion of transmission lines and trade promotion.
In the meeting co-chaired by the Secretary at the Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation, Dinesh Kumar Ghimire, and the Secretary at the Electricity Ministry of India, Alok Kumar, and held in Rajasthan of India on Saturday, the two sides decided to forward the construction of high power transmission line for the interstate power trade.
Executive Director at Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA), Kulman Ghising, informed that the decisions made by the joint directors’ committee on power production, transmission, and trade were huge achievements. The joint task force led by joint secretaries from the two countries made a recommendation to the directors’ committee on Friday.
India took positively Nepal’s proposal for exporting electricity to Bangladesh by using the Indian transmission grid and the two sides decided to agree after the names of hydro projects were submitted, according to ED Ghising. “A proposal seeking Indian permission for exporting Nepal’s electricity to Bangladesh would be sent to the Central Electricity Authority of India, to which the Indian Authority will give consent after necessary tests as per the directive on cross-border power trade,” he added.
Similarly, the Nepali side had proposed the extension of the current one-year permit of electricity trade in the day-ahead market of the Indian Energy Exchange Ltd, which the Indian side agreed to review.
Nepal’s proposal for the export of additional power would be given consent by the Indian side by following due procedure, Ghising shared.
The meeting further decided that Nepal would now be allowed to export electricity via Tanakpur from where only import was possible in the past.
The power as high as 70 megawatts from April to June and 80 megawatts from July to March would be circulated to both sides via the 132-KV single circuit transmission line of Tanakpur-Mahendranagar.
