New Delhi: The Ministry of Power has approved the export of electricity to Nepal for 18 hours a day from September 13 to December 31, with the supply running in a single block from 00:00 hours to 18:00 hours. The clearance covers up to 600 MW through the Muzaffarpur–Dhalkebar 400 kV double-circuit line and up to 54 MW through the Tanakpur–Mahendranagar 132 kV single-circuit line, the ministry said in a statement on Monday.
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The recipient is the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA), the state utility that buys and sells power across the border. The window leaves out the six hours from 18:00 to midnight. How much India supplies after the current arrangement lapses has not been fixed, and the ministry said the quantum of power to be exported from January 2027 "will be reviewed in December."
The ministry tied the approval to the damage done by the floods that swept down the Trishuli valley from August 26. "The recent floods have caused significant damage to hydropower infrastructure in Nepal, reducing its domestic power generation capacity and creating an additional requirement for electricity," it said.
That damage was concentrated in Rasuwa and Nuwakot, where a string of plants sit on the Trishuli and its tributaries. Reports said that 281 MW of installed capacity was wiped out or damaged in the floods, and that a further 150 MW was cut off from the national grid when transmission infrastructure gave way. Another 388 MW of capacity still under construction was hit.
The effect showed up quickly in cross-border flows. NEA acting managing director Dirghayu Kumar Shrestha told The Kathmandu Post that 12 hydropower projects had stopped generating since the flood, with Chilime and Trishuli damaged and shut down, and Sanjen, Upper Sanjen and Salasungi isolated from the grid. Nepal's exports to India, which average about 1,000 MW through the wet season, have since fallen to around 650 MW.
The Muzaffarpur–Dhalkebar link, running from Bihar into Nepal's Dhanusha district, is the largest of the cross-border connections and carries the bulk of trade in both directions. Its capacity limits were revised upward only weeks before the floods. At the 13th Joint Steering Committee meeting in Pokhara on July 15, co-chaired by Nepal's energy secretary Sarita Dawadi and Indian Power Secretary Pankaj Agarwal, the two sides raised the ceiling for power moving into Nepal on that line from 1,000 MW to 1,400 MW. The 600 MW now cleared sits within that limit.
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The second line is older and much smaller. India built the 132 kV line from the Tanakpur power station in Uttarakhand to the border under the Mahakali Treaty of February 12, 1996, which also commits India to supplying Nepal 70 million units of energy a year free-of-cost. On the Nepali side, it terminates at Mahendranagar, in the far-western district of Kanchanpur.
The ministry framed the approval as an extension of an existing relationship rather than a new arrangement. It said the supply would "help Nepal meet its power requirements during this difficult period and further strengthen the close and longstanding energy cooperation between India and Nepal." It added, "India remains committed to supporting Nepal and strengthening bilateral cooperation in the energy sector."
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