By Our Reporter  

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 of electricity for additional hours since Friday morning last week.

Earlier on March 27 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 March 27 itself.

Power supply from India for additional hours 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.

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, said sources at NEA.

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 governments of Nepal and India.

Since March, there have been 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, said one industrialist.

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

Currently, around 1,500 MW of 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.