India will send Nepal 654 MW for 18 hours a day through 31 December

India's power ministry said on 14 September that Nepal will receive up to 654 megawatts for 18 hours a day, midnight to 6 p.m., through 31 December. The bulk, 600 MW, moves on the Muzaffarpur-Dhalkebar 400 kV double-circuit line. Another 54 MW moves on the Tanakpur-Mahendranagar 132 kV line. Shipments of up to 600 MW already started on Sunday. The volume from January 2027 will be reviewed in December.

The request came after the 26 August flood on the China-Nepal border. A glacial collapse sent water and debris down the Bhotekoshi and Trishuli. Reuters put the death toll near 1,400 in Nepal and Tibet. More than 12 hydropower plants in Nepal were hit. About 900 power-station workers were among more than 5,300 people still listed missing. The ministry said domestic generation in Nepal fell by nearly 550 MW. Hydropower had been meeting almost all of the country's electricity demand and had become an export earner in the wet months.

The usual calendar runs the other way. India buys Nepalese surplus in summer and sells power back in the dry winter when river flows fall. Kathmandu asked to pull that winter mechanism forward from October. The 18-hour window covers daylight, when Indian solar can carry part of the load on the Indian side of the meter.

The numbers are a snapshot of how thin Nepal's grid became in three weeks. A country that had been selling electrons is now a daytime importer on two existing cross-border lines. No new wire is being built for this package. The political content is the acceleration and the open review in December, which keeps January from becoming an automatic rollover.

For New Delhi the export is small against domestic peak and useful against the charge that India only talks about neighbourhood power trade when it is the buyer. For Kathmandu the risk is dependence through the winter if tunnel and plant repairs slip. The Chilime tunnel rescue, still under way on Tuesday, is a reminder that some of the damaged civil works are not only generators. They are holes in mountains with people inside.

Almost 100 percent of Nepal's electricity came from hydro before 26 August. That figure is why a single basin flood became a bilateral power story. Thermal backup inside Nepal is thin. Indian coal and solar, delivered on lines that already exist, are the available substitute until the Trishuli plants return.

The ministry's line was that the approval helps Nepal meet demand in a difficult period and strengthens long-standing energy cooperation. The operational line is simpler. Two circuits, 654 MW, 18 hours, 13 September to 31 December, then a review. Whether that review raises, cuts or ends the flow will be the next number that matters in Kathmandu's winter ledger.

Cross-border electricity in South Asia is usually announced as a friendship. This package is friendship with a meter. The meter started on Sunday.