Nepal sold electricity worth Rs 12.40 billion to India during mid-July and mid-January this year, which was 47.97 percent more than the figure in the same period last year.

The records with the Nepal Rastra Bank show that Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) exported electricity worth Rs 8.38 billion to its southern neighbor in the corresponding period last year.

The earnings from electricity exports in the six-month period this year was 19 percent more than the earnings on the heading in the entire period of the last fiscal year. In 2022/23, Nepal earned Rs 10.42 billion from electricity exports.

According to officials of the NEA, the electricity exports increased after Indian authority permitted Nepal to sell electricity in the day-ahead market of the Indian Energy Exchange (IEX). Nepal has been selling electricity produced from 14 hydropower projects in the IEX.

Meanwhile, electricity imports from India declined 13 percent in the review period. According to the NRB, the NEA imported electricity worth Rs 2.73 billion in the first half of the current fiscal year, down from Rs 3.14 billion in the same period last year.

At a time when the industrialists have been blaming the NEA for imposing undeclared loadshedding in the production sector, the NRB records show a decline in the country’s import bills on electricity. Currently, industries have reported to be undergoing power cuts for up to eight hours daily.

Nepal imported electricity worth Rs 19.44 billion in the last fiscal year. Majority of the imports was made during the dry season that prevails in the second half of the fiscal year.