Indian electricity Authority to sell electricity to NEA at Rs. 5.5 per unit

Kathmandu February 15- A three-member delegation of NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam (NVVN), a wholly owned subsidiary of India’s state-owned NTPC, arrived here on Sunday to sign power trade agreement with Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) on supply of electricity.

State-owned NEA is purchasing up to 80 megawatts of electricity from NVVN. If things go according to plan, NEA will start importing the electricity using the newly built Dhalkebar-Muzaffarpur transmission line from February 18, a day before Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s proposed visit to India.

NVVN has agreed to sell electricity to NEA, round the clock, at INR 3.44 (Rs 5.504) per unit.

“Although the tariff has been fixed, we are still working on other details. So, we couldn’t sign the deal today,” a senior NEA official stated. “We are planning to sort out all outstanding issues by today and seal the pact.”

Once the deal is signed, NEA management will have to get an approval from its board of directors to implement the pact. Upon extension of the green signal, NEA will start importing additional quantum of electricity from India. NEA is currently importing around 250MW of electricity from the southern neighbour.

The additional supply of power will largely benefit eastern parts of the country. This, in turn, will allow NEA to divert power being supplied from Hetauda to eastern parts of the country towards Kathmandu.

“This will moderately reduce load-shedding hours in Kathmandu,” the official said. Kathmandu currently faces power cuts of over 14 hours per day.