March 24: Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has been facing problems in importing electricity from India after the price of electricity skyrocketed in the open market of India.

The electricity rate in the open market of India is higher than the rate proposed by the NEA through bidding.

In winter, NEA purchased electricity from the India’s open market through bidding and supplied it to the local market of Nepal. NEA has not been able to get electricity from India for the last two days (Tuesday and Wednesday) as the open market price was higher than the bid amount.

NEA had proposed to buy electricity at Rs 12 per unit on Wednesday. However, the average price of electricity in the Indian open market reached about Rs 18 per unit ( IRs 11.2). As a result, NEA could not purchase electricity from the Indian open market due to a mismatch of rates.

NEA spokesperson Suresh Bhattarai said that they could not get electricity even for a bid of Rs 19.20 on Thursday. The maximum price per unit of electricity on Thursday was Rs 32 per unit (IRs 20), he said.

NEA should offer a bid a day before to buy electricity from India. NEA has been proposing 96 bids every day. "We had offered the same bid for Thursday. However, only eight of them were approved,” said Bhattarai. It is said that the price has gone up due to the scarcity of coal in India, the main source of electricity production.

NEA is currently selling electricity to its customers at an average of Rs 10 per unit. According to Bhattarai, NEA will face problems in supplying electricity by investing up to Rs 32 per unit.

NEA Executive Director Kulman Ghising said that electricity would be purchased even if it was expensive for the industrial sector. "Other customers have enough electricity. However, there is a challenge to supply electricity to the industrial sector,” he said.

An official of NEA claimed that there is a problem in power purchase due to the leadership trying to maintain profit. "Sometimes there is a loss, and sometimes there is a profit when buying throughout the year," he said.

When the water level in the river decline in winter, electricity generation declines, and Nepal needs to import electricity from India. Electricity gets wasted in the rainy season. At that time, Nepal used to export electricity to India. At present, hydropower projects in Nepal generate an average of 800 MW of electricity. However, the demand is 1600 MW.