ISLAMABAD: India has offered tariff of about Rs15 per unit for sale of 500MW of electricity to Pakistan at the Wagah-Attari border that would require a total of 45 kilometres of transmission line, a government official told Dawn on Friday.

A 14-member delegation of Global Energy, a company based in New Delhi, flew into Islamabad on a special plane on Friday for three-day talks with Pakistani authorities to negotiate electricity tariff, firm up technical and transmission details and finalise a sales and purchase agreement.

A four-member team of the delegation had an opening session with Water and Power Minister Syed Naveed Qamar who directed the Central Power Purchase Agency (CPPA), a state-owned entity that purchases electricity from various sources and sells it to distribution companies, to negotiate tariff and other technical details of the project.

An official said the Indian company with most of its operations in Mumbai and Bangalore was acting in the project as purchaser-cum-exporter of electricity from Indian Punjab through Amritsar and delivery at Attari.

He said the company had offered an initial tariff of Indian rupees 7.5 per unit delivered on the border that translates into about Rs14.7 per unit in local currency.

He said the Indian offer was on the higher side given applicable tariff in Pakistan at less than Rs8 per unit that would be negotiated by the CPPA. However, he said that electricity produced through furnace oil, diesel and wind in Pakistan cost between Rs15 and 22 per unit on average.

Officials said that while the CPPA team would negotiate a maximum possible reduction in tariff on proposed import project but at the end of the day it would be up to economic managers and the political leadership to take a final decision on electricity import keeping in mind comparable sources of electricity available in the country.

They said the project would require a 45 kilometre of 220kv transmission line on both sides of the border, including 25 kilometres in India and 20km inside Pakistan.

If the project materialised, the CPPA would transmit electricity into national grid for onward distribution in the Lahore Electric Supply Company’s system.