Nepal-India Power Exchange Committee (PEC) meeting held in New Delhi on Tuesday has examined the ‘fixed rate’ of electricity being imported from India.

Nepal has been importing electricity from 12 different points in India under this mechanism, except Muzzafarpur-Dhalkebar and Tanakpur-Mahendranagar cross-border transmission lines.

The Power Exchange Committee meeting in 2011 had decided to hike the tariff on electricity by 5.5 per cent per annum until the next meeting of the mechanism. Consequently, the electricity tariff went up by 5.5 per cent every subsequent year, as the meeting of the committee could not be held for a long time.

However, the meeting of this mechanism has determined the new tariff for electricity being imported from India.

According to Prabal Adhikari, chief of the power trade department and spokesperson for Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA), electricity tariff has been lowered marginally from the existing rates. The new tariff ranges from INR 5.55 to INR 6.45 per unit based on the capacity of the transmission line.

Tariff of electricity is quite high for low-capacity 11 kV transmission line, compared to 132 kV transmission line. NEA has said that it will gradually minimise import of power through 11 kV transmission lines to lower the cost of electricity imported from India.

Likewise, the meeting also paved the way to import additional 50 megawatts of power each from Kataiya-Kusaha and Raxaul-Parwanipur transmission lines on ‘take and pay’ basis, which means NEA will pay the Indian suppliers as per the consumption of electricity.

As NEA will be able to import additional 100 megawatts of power from Kataiya-Kusaha and Raxaul-Parwanipur transmission lines, it is certain that there will be no load-shedding during the dry season this year, according to NEA officials.

The meeting also discussed developing three cross-border transmission lines of 132 kV and two transmission lines of 33 kV from Uttar Pradesh to Nepal. Sampatiya-Mainaiya; Dhangadhi-Paliya and Nanpara-Kohalpur have been proposed for 132 kV transmission lines. Likewise, Nanpara-Khadiya and Nautanwa-Bhairahawa have been proposed for 33 kV transmission lines.

The meeting also decided to bring Dhangadhi-Paliya 10 kV transmission line into operation within two months, following which Nepal will be able to import 10 MW of electricity through this transmission line in dry season.