Nepal eyes power trade agreement with India

Nepal's Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai today said his country would seek to “conclude” a power trade agreement with New Delhi.

Bhattarai said his government would take initiative during his forthcoming visit to India “to conclude a power trade agreement between Nepal and India, which is so crucial for both importing and exporting power”.

“Power is essential ingredient for all sorts of socio-economic development,” he said citing remarks of Russian revolutionary Lenin that ”lit the village and see the development”.

Meanwhile, Energy Minister Posta Bahadur Bogati also said that Bhattarai, during his New Delhi visit, would request for increasing the power import from India to 200 Mw from the current 50 Mw with a view to relieving the country from the problem of load shedding. Despite having enormous hydro potential with 6,000 rivers and rivulets, only about one per cent of the economically viable potential has been harnessed by Nepal, said Bogati.

Out of 83,000 MW hydro potential of Nepal 50 per cent is economically viable, he added. “About 33 per cent of households still rely on fossil fuel for lighting their houses and only 49 per cent of rural households have access to the electricity,” he said.

Nepal government will accord high priority to building reservoir based hydropower projects so that there will be no deficit of electricity during winter season, when the water level goes down in the rivers, Bogati said.