{"id":124496,"date":"2022-04-19T15:56:14","date_gmt":"2022-04-19T22:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=124496"},"modified":"2022-04-19T15:56:14","modified_gmt":"2022-04-19T22:56:14","slug":"crisis-hit-sri-lanka-india-revive-talks-to-link-electric-grids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2022\/04\/19\/crisis-hit-sri-lanka-india-revive-talks-to-link-electric-grids\/","title":{"rendered":"Crisis-hit Sri Lanka, India revive talks to link electric grids"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Devjyot Ghoshal and Uditha Jayasinghe Courtesy FXEMPIRE<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

COLOMBO (Reuters) \u2013 India and Sri Lanka have resumed talks on linking their electricity grids, officials told Reuters on Tuesday, a step that could aid New Delhi\u2019s goal of reducing China\u2019s influence on the island nation, now grappling with a severe economic crisis.Advertisement<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There was no immediate prospect that power cuts brought by the crisis could be eased by the talks, which are a preliminary effort on a multi-year project both sides have explored before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

India has extended assistance running into billions of dollars to its southern neighbour to fight the crisis, brought on by a steep drop in foreign exchange reserves that stalled imports of essentials such as fuel, so disrupting power supply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is at very initial stages of discussion,\u201d Wasantha Perera, secretary of Sri Lanka\u2019s power ministry, told Reuters, but gave no further details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Protests and political turmoil brought on by rocketing inflation, a currency devaluation and shortages have spurred the nation of 22 million to begin talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a loan programme, also backed by India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now officials of both countries are turning to a project that has made little progress since it was first proposed more than a decade ago, aiming to link the neighbours with a miles-long transmission line running under the Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The grid connection project came up in talks with India\u2019s power ministry in March, when Basil Rajapaksa, then Sri Lanka\u2019s finance minister, visited New Delhi to seek assistance, said a source with knowledge of the matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It will be mutually beneficial,\u201d added the source, who sought anonymity, as the talks were private.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The foreign ministries of both India and Sri Lanka did not immediately respond to Reuters\u2019 requests for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project figured among the key objectives of a strategy paper issued by Sri Lanka\u2019s diplomatic mission in India last July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This would enable Sri Lanka to obtain electricity during operational maintenance and droughts, and also to export excess generation to India,\u201d it said in the document.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nearly two-thirds of Sri Lanka\u2019s electricity is generated by oil and coal-fired plants, while hydro makes up the rest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its total daily power demand is just a fraction of India\u2019s, and meeting peak demand can be a challenge during times of drought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

VYING FOR INFLUENCE<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beijing and New Delhi have long vied for influence over the island, strategically located just off India\u2019s southern tip, and Indian assistance in recent weeks has swelled amid a worsening crisis that has brought thousands on the streets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The grid connectivity project could become part of New Delhi\u2019s requests from Sri Lanka, which has also secured Chinese infrastructure deals in recent years, a source with knowledge of India\u2019s thinking told Reuters, on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until now, India has provided aid amounting to about $1.9 billion through credit lines and swaps, and is ready to commit up to $2 billion more to help Sri Lanka tackle its worst financial crisis since independence from Britain in 1948.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plan to link the two grids has been in the works for years, with the neighbours signing a pact in 2010 on feasibility studies for an undersea power cable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A study by the Power Grid Corporation of India envisaged deployment of either a 500-megawatt (MW) or a 1,000-MW undersea transmission system, the state-run company said in an annual report in 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shortest distance separating India and Sri Lanka is a narrow strip of ocean called the Palk Strait, which is about 40 kilometres (24.85 miles) wide, though the length of an undersea cable would depend on its alignment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Subsea electrical cables with long spans include the NordLink, between Germany and Norway, which is about 623 km (387 miles) long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Reporting by Devjyot Ghoshal and Uditha Jayasinghe in COLOMBO, Additional reporting by Sudarshan Varadhan in CHENNAI; Editing by Krishna N. Das and Clarence Fernandez)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Devjyot Ghoshal and Uditha Jayasinghe Courtesy FXEMPIRE COLOMBO (Reuters) \u2013 India and Sri Lanka have resumed talks on linking their electricity grids, officials told Reuters on Tuesday, a step that could aid New Delhi\u2019s goal of reducing China\u2019s influence on the island nation, now grappling with a severe economic crisis.Advertisement 71% of retail investor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[183],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-124496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124496\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}