Nepal Electricity Authority has brought the 220kV Hetauda-Bharatpur Transmission Line Project, which is a part of the Hetauda-Bharatpur-Bardaghat transmission line, into operation.

The state-owned power utility said in a press statement that the 73-km double circuit power line was charged at 132kv capacity on Monday.

It is an important development towards improving the country’s energy supply as the NEA has been facing difficulty transmitting electricity from the eastern to western region due to the limited capacity of the 132kV power lines.

The power line links the old substation at Hetauda Sub-Metropolitan City, Makawanpur and Aaptari, Bharatpur.

“With the completion of the project, as much as 170MW of electricity can be transmitted from Hetauda to Bharatpur and Bharatpur to Hetauda,” the NEA said in the statement. “Only 90MW power can be transmitted through the existing 132kV line.”

Santosh Kumar Sah, chief of Hetauda-Bharatpur-Bardaghat Transmission Line Project, said that the electricity could not be charged at 220kV capacity because substations at both Bharatpur and Hetauda with that capacity have not been completed.

“They are expected to be completed in the next two months and that will enable us to charge electricity at full capacity and increase the volume of electricity transmitted through the power line,” he added.

The project was launched in 2008 with the help of the World Bank. It was developed under two different packages—Hetauda-Bharatpur and Bharatpur-Bardaghat sections.

But obstruction from the local people, problems in acquiring lands, delay in cutting trees in the forest areas and weak performance of contractors resulted in a prolonged implementation phase, according to the NEA.

In fact, in 2021, the World Bank had withdrawn from the project due to delay in completion of the works that forced the government to inject its own money to complete the project, the power utility said.

While construction work of the Hetauda-Bharatpur package is completed, the Bharatpur-Bardaghat section of the project is also on the verge of completion, according to the NEA.

This section of the project lies incomplete for over two years due to obstruction from local people of Dumkibas in Tribeni Rural Municipality-2 and because of an interim order issued by the Supreme Court in early 2022.

Even though only two transmission towers had remained to be erected at Dumkibas, the NEA failed to complete the project for a prolonged period due to local’s obstruction. Earlier, the NEA said it had erected 244 of the 246 pylons of the 74-km section of the transmission line.

The project’s work was stalled for over a year after the Supreme Court acting on a writ petition filed by locals issued an interim order in April 2021 to stop work on the two last pylons.

But on June 27, 2022, the court vacated the interim order, theoretically paving the way for the project to resume the pylon work. But work on site could not resume for another year as locals continued obstruction despite court order.

The NEA said it reached an understanding with the locals in early June with an improved compensation offer. “The erection of the remaining two towers is now complete,” the NEA said. “The transmission line is being connected in the remaining 1.7km section of the power line.”

Sah said that it may take till mid-August to make the transmission line ready for charging electricity after completing necessary testing.