SATV April 1, Kathmandu: The load shedding imposed in the industrial sector has been reduced by half after India started supplying power for additional five hours at night.

India has started supplying 600 MW electricity for additional hours since Friday morning.

Earlier on Thursday last week, India agreed to allow Nepal to import an additional 600 megawatts of electricity for five hours, excluding solar hour (6 am to 6 pm) from the competitive market.

As per the decision of the government of India to allow Nepal to import additional electricity from 11 pm to 4 am, the NEA has started importing electricity since Thursday midnight itself, spokesperson at the Nepal Electricity Authority Raja Bhai Shilpakar.

He said that India, which had stopped supplying electricity to Nepal during the night, has now increased power supply from 11 pm to 4 am and that electricity is coming regularly. 

He said that this has helped reduce load shedding in the industry significantly.

Now, India has been supplying electricity to Nepal 16 hours a day. The electricity is being imported from 6 am to 5 pm (in solar hour) and 11 pm to 4 am (in off-solar hour) a day, he said.

"With the increment of power supply from India to Nepal, the load shedding imposed in industrial sector has been reduced to five hours from 12 hours a day. Import of additional 500 MW to 600 MW based on the needs is helping to manage supply side management," he said. 

According to him, electricity supply has been managed by storing water in peaking-type hydroelectric projects during the hours when electricity is imported and generating electricity during the hours of high demand.

Earlier, Minister for Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation Dipak Khadka had said that an arrangement was made to import additional electricity from India through the diplomatic initiatives of the government of Nepal and India.

President of Nepal Chamber of Commerce (NCC) Kamlesh Kumar Agrawal said that problem of long-hour power outage which had become a headache for the industries has been reduced for the past three days.

“Since March, there was 12/13 hours of load shedding daily, but with the increase in electricity imports from India, load shedding has come down to five hours, which is a good thing for industrialists,” Agrawal said.

"Regular and sudden power outages are disrupting the continuous operation of industries, causing unexpected impacts on the production process and resulting in a huge decline in production," he said.

He said that the government should supply electricity to the industries with due priority as they constitute the backbone of the national economy.

He, however, said that the load shedding in the industries should be ended forever.

NEA spokesperson Silpakar said that Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation and NEA have been lobbying with concerned authority of the government of India to import additional quantity electricity to end the power outage even in the industries.

"We are still in deficit of electricity in the peak demand time (6 pm to 11 pm) and compelled to cut power supply in the industries. Therefore, we are effortful to import electricity at that time for regular power supply," he said

Currently, around 1,500 MW electricity is being produced inside the country during peak demand time (6 pm to 11 pm) while the national peak demand is around 1,960 MW.