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

India’s Power Ministry on 14 and 15 September confirmed that it will export up to 654 megawatts to the Nepal Electricity Authority for 18 hours a day until 31 December. Six hundred megawatts will move on the Muzaffarpur-Dhalkebar 400 kV double-circuit line. Another 54 megawatts will move on the Tanakpur-Mahendranagar 132 kV single-circuit line. Shipments at the new level began as early as 13 September. The quantity for January 2027 will be reviewed in December.

The cause is the 26 August flood on the China-Nepal border. A glacial collapse sent water and debris down the Bhotekoshi and Trishuli. More than 1,400 people were killed in Nepal and Tibet. Nepali officials have said about 900 power-station workers are among more than 5,300 people still missing. At least 12 hydropower plants were hit. Generation dropped by roughly 430 to 550 megawatts in a country that had been meeting almost all of its electricity demand from falling water.

Before the flood Nepal was an exporter in the wet months. It had been selling more than 600 megawatts to India and about 40 megawatts to Bangladesh. Those outward flows stopped. Kathmandu asked New Delhi to bring forward the winter import window, which normally opens in October when river levels fall. The ministry agreed to start now and to run 18 hours a day rather than a shorter peak-only slice.

The lines that make the swap possible

The Muzaffarpur-Dhalkebar link is the thick pipe. Tanakpur-Mahendranagar is the older, thinner one. Together they can carry the 654 megawatts on paper. Grid operators on both sides will still have to match time of day and local load. Eighteen hours a day is a long window. It covers daylight industry and evening household demand and leaves a six-hour overnight gap when Nepal must live on whatever plants still spin.

The ministry’s statement used the stock phrase about “longstanding energy cooperation.” The operational fact is more specific. For years the two grids have run a seasonal bargain: Nepal sells monsoon surplus south, India sells thermal power north in winter. August broke the first half of that bargain. December’s review will decide whether the second half becomes a standing import.

Nepal has also begun asking richer states and lenders for reconstruction money. Early rebuild estimates in Kathmandu have been put near $5 billion, a figure officials tie to climate damage in a poor mountain country. Power is only one line in that bill. Bridges, roads and the trading town of Syabrubesi are in the same wreckage. India’s 654 megawatts will not rebuild a turbine hall. They will keep lights on while the halls are counted.

The next public number to watch is Nepal’s daily shortfall against the 654 megawatt cap. If actual draw sits well below the cap, the plants that survived are doing more than first feared. If the cap is binding every evening, the winter review in December will be a request for more, not less.