Nepal and Bangladesh have already agreed to develop the Sunkoshi III through a joint venture investment during the fourth meeting of the working group and a joint steering committee held in late August 2022.
Nepal has not formally spoken to Bangladesh about bringing India into the development of the Sunkoshi III project. But Nepali officials believe involving India could help to break the deadlock over power export from Nepal to Bangladesh. “We have not yet discussed with Bangladesh about involving India to develop this project,” said a senior official of the energy ministry. “It is our thought that involving the Indian side would help to break the ice for the trilateral deal.” According to officials, there have been discussions within the Energy Ministry to involve India in the project. In the fourth meeting, both sides agreed that Nepal would provide an environmental impact assessment report of the Sunkoshi III project to the Bangladeshi side and later would respond with its opinion. The two sides also agreed to move forward with the process of establishing a joint venture company to develop the project. “As agreed in the last meeting, we have sent the feasibility study report and environmental impact assessment report of Sunkoshi III to Bangladesh,” said Madhu Bhetuwal, spokesperson at the Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation. During the meeting, the two sides will discuss bringing India on board for a trilateral agreement to ensure that Nepal and Bangladesh could trade electricity through the Indian territory. Both sides have made efforts at the highest level since Bangladesh, as an energy-hungry country, is seeking to diversify its energy sources. Bangladesh also wants to increase the share of clean energy in its energy mix and it has targeted electricity import from Nepal and Bhutan as a major priority for the purpose. Though Nepal and Bangladesh are not far away, they are not geographically connected. The two countries can trade electricity only through Indian territory. That’s why, bringing India on board for this purpose is very important. In recent years, India has been eager to forge power sector partnerships with Nepal and Bangladesh. According to the Joint Vision Statement on Power Sector Cooperation between Nepal and India issued in April last year, the two countries agreed to widen collaboration in the power sector and include partner nations under Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, and Nepal (BBIN) framework. As a token, Nepal and Bangladesh last year agreed to request India for the passage of 40-50MW of electricity from Nepal to Bangladesh through the existing transmission infrastructure of India. Both sides have been making efforts to bring India on board for this purpose. But they are yet to secure a nod from the southern neighbor. “There will be further discussions on the matter based on each other countries’ discussions with the Indian side,” the energy ministry official said.
