The tariff issue emerged after India assigned NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam to export power to Nepal. Previously, India's Power Trading Corporation (PTC) was supposed to supply the 80 MW electricity. PTC had proposed selling the electricity at Rs 5.5 per unit, but NTPS has now demanded Rs 8.8 per unit, The Kathmandu Post reported.
"The issue surfaced after a new agency was brought onboard to supply energy to Nepal. We are doing our bit to resolve the issue at the earliest," NEA Managing Director Mukesh Kafle was quoted as saying by the paper.
"We are sure the G2G (government-to-government) negotiation will yield positive results," said Kafle.
The hurdle comes even as the construction of the 400kV Dhalkebar-Muzaffarpur cross-border transmission line was set to complete by today and a test transmission would begin from tomorrow.
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"This marks the end of infrastructure development of the cross-border transmission line," Kafle said.
Nepal purchases energy from PTC at Rs 5.80 per unit on an average. The country is currently importing 200-230MW electricity from India everyday. The import of additional energy will help reduce load shedding by around two hours a day.
"This is a commercial deal and without clarity on tariff we simply cannot act," he said, adding since the import of the additional energy falls under the government's priority, he was optimistic the issue would be resolved soon.
During a Nepal-India Joint Steering Committee meeting in January, the two countries had discussed Nepal importing up to 200MW energy from the Dhalkebar-Muzaffarpur transmission line within the next winter season and had agreed to make the project functional in full capacity by December 2017.
Once the project is operated in full capacity, Nepal will be able to import around 940MW energy from India.