India looking to export electricity to Pakistan; says Nirupama Rao

Confirming the news, India’s Ambassador to the United States Nirupama Rao on Tuesday said they were mulling to export exporting 500 megawatts of electricity to Pakistan.

Nirupama Rao, who has also served as India’s foreign secretary, posted a message on the social networking website Twitter said that New Delhi was working on the requests for energy made by Bangladesh and Nepal.

However, a section of India public expressed a strong reaction over her message and opposed the idea.

They were of the view that the country should cater to its own requirements first before considering the needs of other states.

According to the statistics, India produces 170,000 megawatts of electricity annually whereas the domestic demand for electricity exceeds the supply.

Dispelling the impression that the power export would create a shortfall in the country, she pointed out that 55,000 megawatts of electricity was added to the national grid between the 2007 and 2012, which includes 20,500 megawatts added in 2011-2012 alone.

Rao further said that t the capacity was being further augmented.

Earlier on Monday, Indian media reported that New Delhi was looking to sell 500 MW of electricity to Islamabad through a transmission line.

The report quoting Indian Minister of State for Power K C Venugopal said, “A group of experts from India and Pakistan met in Islamabad last month to explore the possibility of a 500MW cross border transmission interconnection between the neighbors for transmission of power that may be sourced by Pakistan from the Indian electricity market on commercial basis”.

According to the report, the mode of delivery was proposed to be a transmission interconnection and the duration of transmission of electricity supply will depend on the contractual arrangement of trade.

The discussions are part of the efforts to create a strong electricity grid between India and other South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation countries such as Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, according to the state-run Power Grid Corporation of India Limited.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=32103

Posted by Faisal Farooq on Sep 4 2012. Filed under National, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.