The success of the onion diplomacy that played out earlier this year seems to have set the stage for the possibility of electricity trading between India and Pakistan.
Faced with a serious power crisis, Pakistan is keen to draw power from India. A proposal aimed at setting up transmission infrastructure on a joint-ownership basis to facilitate the wheeling of around 500 MW of electricity via Amritsar is being considered by the two sides. As a step in the direction, the first meeting of a newly formed Group of Experts that has been set up by the two countries to enable trade in electricity took place here on October 20. The meeting, following from Secretary-level talks held in Islamabad in April this year, declared plans to thrash out issues associated with the planning, construction and operation of interconnection between India and Pakistan.
It was also agreed that on the Indian side, the Central Electricity Authority and Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd would be the nodal technical agencies while Pakistan has designated its National Transmission and Despatch Company Ltd and Chief Engineering Advisor as nodal agencies. The next meeting of the Expert Group is to be held in Pakistan in the first week of December, when technical feasibility and tariff-related issues could be taken up.
The move comes in the backdrop of the relative success of onion imports from Pakistan through the Wagah-Attari land route that helped control spiralling prices of the vegetable in India earlier this year. It also comes at a time when Pakistan is said to be in advanced stages of extending MFN or most favoured nation status to India.
According to officials involved in the exercise, there is general agreement that cross border trading through HVDC (high voltage direct current) coupling, as being done currently with Bangladesh, can be considered to ensure that both the grids operate independently.
“The possibility of power exchange between the two countries, while being technically feasible, is largely dependent on the broad political willingness on both sides. While India is also facing a domestic power crunch, the move to offer electricity to Pakistan is being seen as a part of a broader strategic initiative,” a Government official said. At present, no transmission link exists between India and Pakistan. During 1998-1999, the Government of India did consider a proposal for import of power from Pakistan. However, talks got bogged down on issues relating to tariff for power to be purchased from Pakistan and no progress was made.
There exists a complete network of transmission lines and grids on the Pakistani side along the north-western border of Indian Punjab. The nearest grid on the Indian side of Punjab is Patti, located very near to Lahore Ring, which makes the prospect of grid interconnection quite feasible in pure economic terms. An asynchronous HVDC back-to-back link is being seen as the most practical option in the current circumstances.
Within the South Asian region, plans are already afoot to revive grid interconnections or set up new connections between nearly all countries. While a transmission link with Bhutan is already in place, there are plans to tweak the existing line to enable up to 5,000 MW of electricity imports into India by 2020. In Nepal, a proposal aimed at increasing power sharing through stronger transmission links is being implemented. With Sri Lanka, plans are already under way for setting up a $450-million undersea power transmission link while a cross border link with Bangladesh is in the works.