Link with Bangladesh sees record surge in power exports.

The outgoing UPA government’s list of squandered diplomatic opportunities has one clear exception. India’s electricity diplomacy efforts on the eastern border with power-starved Bangladesh has broken new ground, with electricity flows since the commissioning of a crucial cross-country grid link in September surging to a record in March. In fact, since October 2013, when the power flows with Bangladesh started, electricity exports from India has gradually shot up with every passing month. Since December 2013, electricity flows to Bangladesh have actually been higher that the cumulative exchanges with India’s other two traditional energy trading partners — Bhutan and Nepal.

The power flows have been facilitated by the September 2013 commissioning of a crucial cross-border transmission link, seen as a major milestone in strengthening the bilateral relationship at a time when India was desperate to make up for its inability to deliver on two key pacts with Bangladesh, the one on Teesta waters that was blocked by the Mamata Banerjee administration and the land boundary pact between the two countries. In this light, there was a sense of urgency in expediting the crucial 71-km Baharampur-Bheramara transmission link between the electricity grids of the two countries to ensure that the interconnection was up and running well ahead of Bangladesh’s general elections in January 2014. The power link, in some sense, is seen to have partially made up for the delays in the other two major commitments from the Indian side, coming at a time when the Sheikh Hasina administration has completely turned around Bangladesh’s India policy.

The cross-border link can facilitate electricity transfer of up to 500 mega watt (MW) from India to Bangladesh. The 400kv line on both sides of the border was energised in September 2013 and the HVDC (high voltage direct current) buffer — to ensure that any fluctuations or disturbances of one grid would not affect the other side — was subsequently readied for testing so that power flows could commence from October. Under the arrangement, a total of 500 MW of power can optimally flow from India to Bangladesh, of which 250 MW is from the Centre’s unallocated quota of power (at rates notified by the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission) and the other 250 MW to be contracted by Bangladesh from the Indian electricity market.

A similar initiative with power-starved Pakistan continues to hang fire, even though the PMO was learnt to have been receptive to pushing through the proposal. Under this, Pakistan had indicated its willingness to hook up a portion of Lahore with the Indian side, enabling the capital of the Punjab province to draw electricity from the Indian grid. Pakistan’s government made the proposal to an expert group representing the Indian government that visited the country in June 2013 after the new government in place in Islamabad. The Indian group met with Punjab CM Shahbaz Sharif in Lahore and was rushed to Islamabad for an unscheduled meeting with the federal minister for water and power Khawaja Muhammad Asif.

The proposal to island a part of Lahore from the Pakistani grid and hook up a direct connection with the integrated NEW (north-east-west-north eastern) grid in India is aimed at faciliating the transfer of 250-300 MW of power from the Indian side as a short-term fix for Pakistan’s debilitating power crisis.

Source : indianexpress.com