Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has taken serious notice of the distorted and misleading news disseminated in some media outlets, as well as the comments being made on various social media platforms, regarding the agreement reached for electricity management in the upcoming winter season.
Since Nepal’s national power system is predominantly based on run-of-river hydropower projects, the electricity surplus during the rainy season is exported, while during the dry season, electricity must be imported from neighboring India for a few months to manage domestic demand. Last year, a total of 2.38 billion units of electricity were exported, while 1.68 billion units were imported from India.
The NEA has been importing electricity from India’s Energy Exchange Market (IEX) through the day-ahead and real-time markets and power exchange mechanism. However, due to the increasing demand for electricity in the past few years, Nepal had agreed to purchase electricity from India only during the dry season months of last year, i.e., the period from 6 am to 6 pm and during the time other than the AVBP Jaigach. Since the same situation is likely to continue in the current fiscal year as well, it is necessary to purchase electricity in advance as a base import in some quantity for the management of electricity during the dry season, and an agreement has been reached to purchase electricity in the best possible option among the available options.
For the purchase of electricity through a bilateral agreement, proposals were sought from PTC India Ltd., which also has investments from Indian government agencies, and NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam (NVVN), an Indian government agency, on 29 July 2025. On 8 August 2025, a proposal was received from PTC to provide electricity at a Landed Tariff of 6.74 Indian Rupees per unit with a period of 1 month (which will be effective only if the agreement is signed by 8 September 2025), while NVVN submitted a proposal to sell electricity at a Landed Tariff of 7.70 Indian Rupees per unit.
Due to the delay in the decision by the then Board of Directors and management of the Authority, the PTC proposal could not be implemented and was automatically canceled from 8 September 2025. After that, when a situation arose that required a re-bid, in the proposed proposal, a Landed Tariff rate of 6.95 rupees per unit was submitted by PTC on 22 September 2025, while a revised proposal was received from NVVN that the Landed Tariff rate could be made only 7.67 rupees per unit. Accordingly, PTC’s offer to purchase power from the Dhalkebar (Muzaffarpur) line is 0.72 rupees per unit lower than that of NVVN. Similarly, the Nepal-India Power Exchange Committee (PEC) has fixed a rate of 8.10 Indian rupees (INR) per unit for 132 kV voltage on a take and pay basis for the period up to March next year. An agreement was signed with NVVN at 7.05 rupees per unit to purchase 230 MW of power during the dry season last year. However, the agreement could not be implemented due to lack of consent from the Indian Designated Authority.
The rate proposed by NVVN was Rs 7.67 per unit, the rate fixed by PEC for this year was Rs 8.10 per unit, the contract rate made with NVVN last year was Rs 7.05 per unit and the highest rate of Rs 10 per unit of the previous year (at which the possibility of getting the amount of electricity bid was even less). Therefore, in the meeting of the Authority’s Board of Directors dated 26 September 2025, it was decided to purchase electricity from PTC in RTC mode from January to May 2026 through 80 MW from the Bihar (Nepal 132 KV transmission line and 100 MW from the Dhalkebar Muzaffarpur transmission line. Which has also been approved by the Electricity Regulatory Commission. The agreement has been submitted to the Indian Designated Authority for approval and will come into effect only after receiving approval from the said body.
Therefore, we would like to clarify that the current board of directors and management of Nepal Electricity Authority have not done anything that would harm the institution or the nation. We request everyone not to fall into such confusion as information and news have been deliberately disseminated to defame the Minister of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation, Physical Infrastructure and Transport and Urban Development and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Nepal Electricity Authority, Mr. Kulman Ghising, and the anaging Director of the Authority, Mr. Manoj Silwal, regarding the issue of the agreement made for winter electricity management.