NDA (II) 2023 General Ability Test · Question 141 of 146

Correct — C, Nepal. The project takes its name from the Karnali, the long west-Nepal river that gives the country's Karnali province its name, and it is being built on that river. It was in the news three months before this paper: on 1 June 2023 a memorandum of understanding for the development of the Phukot Karnali Hydro Electric Project was exchanged between NHPC Limited of India and Vidhyut Utpadan Company Limited of Nepal at Hyderabad House in New Delhi, in the presence of the Prime Minister of India and the Prime Minister of Nepal. The installed capacity is 480 MW, with an average annual generation of about 2,448 GWh, and the power is to feed Nepal's own integrated system. NHPC holds 51 per cent of the venture and the Nepali utility 49 per cent.

• (a)Thailand — Thailand has no river called the Karnali and no Indian public-sector hydro venture of this kind. The name of the project is the giveaway — Karnali is a Nepali river, and Phukot a Nepali place name.
• (b)Indonesia — Indonesia is an archipelago with no Himalayan river system at all, and India's energy engagement there runs to coal and gas rather than to Himalayan-style storage hydro.
• (d)Bhutan — This is the trap, because India's oldest and largest cross-border hydro partnership is with Bhutan, and a candidate who remembers only that association will pick it. Phukot Karnali sits on the Karnali, which flows through Nepal, and the Nepali partner is the state generator Vidhyut Utpadan Company Limited.

Nepal's Himalayan rivers fall through enormous heights over short distances, which makes them among the best storage-hydro sites in South Asia, while Nepal itself has a small domestic market. India's public-sector generators have therefore taken equity stakes in Nepali projects, developing the plant with a Nepali partner and feeding the power into Nepal's grid, with surpluses tradable across the border. Phukot Karnali is one such venture — a 480 MW project on the Karnali with a 109-metre roller-compacted-concrete dam and an underground powerhouse housing six units of 79 MW each, plus a small surface powerhouse of 6 MW to use the minimum environmental release.

For an exam, the useful skill here is reading the project's name as geography. Indian and neighbouring hydro projects are almost always named after the river or the nearest settlement, so Karnali points to Nepal exactly as Punatsangchhu points to Bhutan or Subansiri to Arunachal Pradesh. As of the September 2023 exam this was a fresh agreement signed in June that year, which is why it appeared. One honest present-day note: the venture has since run into difficulty over how much free electricity Nepal is entitled to, with a Nepali court order increasing the share and the developer arguing that the increased provision would make the project unviable — so the plant that was news in 2023 is not yet a plant on the ground.

• The Phukot Karnali Hydro Electric Project has an installed capacity of 480 MW and an average annual generation of about 2,448 GWh.
• The memorandum of understanding between NHPC Limited and Vidhyut Utpadan Company Limited of Nepal was exchanged on 1 June 2023 in New Delhi.
• NHPC holds 51 per cent and the Nepali utility 49 per cent of the venture.
• The design has a 109-metre concrete dam and an underground powerhouse with six units of 79 MW each, plus a 6 MW surface powerhouse for the environmental release.
• The power generated is to be fed into Nepal's integrated power system.

• Answering Bhutan by reflex whenever an Indian cross-border hydro project is mentioned.
• Assuming the power from such a project comes to India; Phukot Karnali is to feed Nepal's own grid.
• Confusing an agreement signed with a plant commissioned — a memorandum is the start of a long road.

Asked as a one-line current-affairs locator, where the project's name carries the geography if you read it.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Phukot Karnali Hydro Electric Project is being developed by NHPC Limited together with

  • (a)Vidhyut Utpadan Company Limited of Nepal
  • (b)Druk Green Power Corporation of Bhutan
  • (c)Bangladesh Power Development Board
  • (d)Ceylon Electricity Board

  Answer(a) Vidhyut Utpadan Company Limited of Nepal — the memorandum was exchanged in New Delhi on 1 June 2023, with NHPC taking 51 per cent.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Karnali river flows mainly through

  • (a)Bhutan
  • (b)Nepal
  • (c)Myanmar
  • (d)Tibet only

  Answer(b) Nepal — it is the river that gives Nepal's Karnali province its name and the site of the 480 MW Phukot Karnali project.