NEA team off to Delhi for additional power import

A team of officials from the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) left for India on Wednesday aiming to fix logistic requirements for the import of additional 55 MW electricity and harnessing the ties for mid and long term power trade between the two countries.
A three-member NEA team led by Rameshwore Yadav, managing director of NEA, left for India after the Indian government during President Dr Ram Baran Yadav´s visit last week expressed its commitment to export additional 55 MW electricity to Nepal for this dry season.
"We will request our Indian counterparts to speed up the process of fixing required infrastructure as soon as possible," Yadav said before leaving for India. Yadav has assured that the committed 55 MW electricity would be imported within the next four months.
According to Yadav, the team will also hold talks with Power Trade Corporation of India (PTC) and other Indian officials to fix transmission lines on the Indian side. Currently, Nepal imports total of 115 MW power from India.
"We can import upto 180 MW electricity from India through our existing transmission lines," Yadav said. "However, there are certain issues such as paperwork and repair of transmission lines on Indian side to be resolved by India."
The additional 55 MW power that is expected to be imported within the next few months as the Indian government has commited to export a total of 200 MW power to Nepal. "We have to construct additional transmission lines if we want to import more than 180MW electricity from India," Yadav said.
Meanwhile, the team will also focus on speeding up construction of Dhalkebar-Muzaffarpur (400 kV) transmission line. "We will hold discussions with the concerned Indian officials to give impetus to the project," Yadav said.
In November 2009, NEA and Indian stakeholders -- PTC, Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) and Power grid Corporation of India Ltd (PGCIL) -- had set May 2010 as the deadline for completion of the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) and financial closure of the project. However, no substantial progress has been made towards completing the target so far.
"Our visit has two specific purposes," Yadav said. "One is to fix the short-term logistic requirements, second and more importantly, to streamline the talks with India towards long term power trade between the two countries."