NEA gets Rs 5.4 govt grant to tackle power cuts
KATHMANDU, OCT 05 -
The government has provided a grant of Rs 5.4 billion to Nepal Electricity Authority ( NEA ) in a bid to cut down power shortage to 12 hours a day during upcoming winter.
According to NEA officials, the grant was extended especially to import additional electricity from India and as compensation against a possible loss that the authority could incur due to the technical loss while importing energy from India.
“Apart from these, the grant will be spent to implement measures designed to substantially reduce the load shedding hours,” said Arjun Kumar Chauhan, director of Institutional Financial Departme at NEA . The Economic and Infrastructure Committee of the Cabinet on Monday endorsed a 15-point Load Shedding Reduction Action Plan, submitted by the Ministry of Energy (MoE).
The country imported 750 million units of energy in the last fiscal year. Though the NEA purchases the energy at Rs 7.23 per unit, it actually costs Rs 9.69 due to technical leakage. The NEA had also asked for compensation for previous losses.
As per the plan, the NEA needs Rs 2.80 billion annually to operate its thermal plants and another Rs 2.60 billion to import additional energy from India. The committee has also asked the Finance Ministry to release the amount for the NEA within a month.
The NEA has aimed at bringing diesel plants in Biratnagar and Hetaunda, which are currently under construction, into operation within two months.
The plan had proposed for the early construction of the 400kv Dhalkebar-Mujjaffapur inter-boarder transmission line, generating 40 MW of energy from diesel plants (39MW in Duhabi, Morang, and 14.4MW in Hetauda), importing 200 MW additional energy from India and purchasing energy from captive plants of local industrial units, among others. The MoE has already asked the Finance Ministry to release Rs 330 million to build the transmission line.
In its plan, the ministry had also asked the Cabinet for authority to initiate dialogue with the Indian government on the import of additional power and construction of the 132kv transmission line with Power Grid Corporation, India.
A couple of months ago, the NEA had estimated that load-shedding could be extended to as long as 21 hours a day this winter. The projection prompted Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai to order the MoE and the NEA to resort to all possible measures to reduce the power cuts.
During a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement Summit in the Iranian capital Tehran earlier this month, the PM had asked him to export 200 MW to Nepal.
Source: The Kathmandu Post
