In a major boost to cross-border power trade, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi jointly inaugurated the Dhalkebar-Muzaffarpur cross-border transmission line on Saturday. The power line is the first to come into operation among six such projects planned for cross-border power trade between the two countries.

What makes the inauguration of this power line crucial is Nepal plans to import additional 600MW electricity from India by December 2017 to end load shedding. The government on Thursday announced “National Energy Crisis Reduction and Electricity Development Decade”, with an ambitious target of ending load shedding in next two years. “Power import from India is one of the crucial components of this plan,” said Sanjaya Sharma, spokesperson for the Ministry of Energy. 

As per the plan, more than 50 percent of the country’s electricity requirement during the dry season would be fulfilled through imports from India in the first year. 

The country’s installed capacity hydropower projects stands at 780MW, which drops to 300MW during the dry season. (Details on Money I)