Addis Ababa, Oct 25 (IANS): Ethiopia is to outsource the management of the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation (EEPCo) to Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd (PGCIL), a company owned by the Indian government.

PGCIL has won the tender floated by Ethiopia's Ministry of Water, Irrigation and Energy. Gosaye Mengeste, director in the ministry, told IANS that Power Grid Corp surpassed other competitors in the technical evaluation.

The company is currently doing a feasibility study on how it will satisfy customers and meet the expectations of the Ethiopian government.

The company will be paid $16.7 million in two years. It will however only take over the management after the evaluation of the study it will present to the government.

"This (procedure) is because the standards are put to the corporation by the government of Ethiopia aimed at achieving better results, and they should be met", Gosaye told IANS.

The power distribution will be under the authority of PGCIL, for it is becoming cumbersome for the EEPCo to manage the tasks of generation as well as distribution.

PGCIL, India's state-run transmission utility, transmits about 45 percent of the total power generated in India. Its Ethiopian counterpart, however, generates all of the power produced for the national grid and administers all its transmission lines.

The Indian company is also erecting the 1,045-km-long transmission line of the Ethiopia-Kenya interconnection project financed by the World Bank (WB).