Nepal is preparing to buy additional electricity from India for three months starting from December, an official at Nepal Electric Authority (NEA) said here Monday.

"The NEA, a semi-governmental organization, is compelled to buy additional electricity to meet the surge in demand during the winter months because of low production," Janak Lal Karmacharya, Managing Director at NEA, told reporters.

"NEA has no other option except to buy electricity from outside if it wants to avoid the load-shedding in winter season in Nepal," Karmacharya noted.

Although there are more than a dozen electricity projects under construction, but non of them will be supplying electricity in the next few years. "So, we are initiating for the meeting of the Nepal-India Power Exchange Committee to buy electricity from India, " Karmacharya said.

With the total demand for electricity standing for 609 MW, the NEA has only been supplying 527 MW across the country. There is a shortage of 32 MW, although NEA has been buying 50 MW electricity from India to meet the demand, Karmacharya said.

NEA is also scrambling to meet the demand for power, which is increasing by 10 percent every year as the clients of NEA have been growing by 10.05 percent every year, Karmacharya added.

Source: Xinhua