The very idea "India offers to export electricity to Pakistan" is a figment of someone's imagingation.
Herewith the actual situation :
Power ministry says no offer made to Pak
NEW DELHI: A day after Pakistan's commerce secretary Zafar Mehmood claimed India had offered to sell electricity to help Islamabad tide over nationwide shortage, power ministry officials on Thursday said they had no idea of such an offer having been made.
"We are not aware of any offer from our side, neither have we received any request from them," a top power ministry official told ToI, requesting anonymity.
On Wednesday, a PTI report from Islamabad quoted Mehmood as saying India had offered to sell power and the issue would be discussed at the two-day commerce secretary-level talks, slated to begin on April 27.
Commerce ministry officials said no such idea was on the table. "Any side can come up with anything since the talks would be unstructured. They may have this on their mind," a commerce ministry official said.
Other officials said Mehmood's statement may be aimed at getting India to revive talks for linking the respective grids under a 2009 Saarc agreement on a regional electricity grid.
An interconnect between the two countries have not progressed beyond the initial discussions due to the strained bilateral relations.
In contrast, India has a major line linking its grid with Bhutan from where it imports over 1,000 mw. India also has a link with Nepal and supplies about 50-100 mw through it. New Delhi is building a link with Bangladesh for exchanging 500 mw and also studying a subsea line to Sri Lanka.
During the initial talks, Pakistan was expected to exchange 500 mw to India through a 220 kv link that was to be upgraded to a 2,000 mw high-voltage, direct-current line. But with time, while India has ramped up its generation capacity substantially, Pakistan has lagged and is facing massive shortages.
Looking at present supply position in India, which experiences about 12% peak shortage, New Delhi may still be able to supply some 500 mw during off-peak hours. But, establishing a link and working out the technical and commercial modalities would take months.