A giant 6,000 MW hydropower project that India and Nepal agreed to build in 1997 but lay stuck due to political tensions is set to get moving with Nepal announcing it would take the first ground-breaking steps.
The Pancheswor multipurpose project was the centrepiece of the Indo-Nepal Treaty signed in 1996-97, the two countries agreeing to harness the Mahakali river, which is known as Sarada in India.
The revival now will cost both governments more than Rs30,000 crore instead of the estimated Rs17,000 crore due to the long delay.
Nepal’s Finance Minister Surendra Pandey said the coalition government of Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal would begin work on the construction of a ropeway and an approach road to the proposed site.
The announcement made in the budget speech on Monday for the current fiscal comes a day after India’s Water Resources Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal ended a two-day visit to Nepal, saying that Indo-Nepal cooperation in the field of hydropower had immense potential.
The Pancheswor multipurpose project envisions a 315m high dam and has been under fire from environmentalists in both countries.
However, a power-strapped Nepal last year agreed to give priority to the mega project as well as another controversial giant, the Saptakoshi multipurpose project that too entails a 269m dam.
During his Nepal visit, Bansal underscored the need for high dams to prevent floods in Nepal and India.
However, the revival will not be an easy task with the Maoists now sitting in opposition.
Last October, though the Maoist government of then prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda had agreed to give a push to the two multipurpose projects, now that the party is out of power, it is likely to oppose these projects.
On Monday, soon after the Indian minister’s departure, an ethnic organisation of the Maoists, the Kiranti Rastriya Mukti Morcha, said it would oppose the 269m dam mentioned by Bansal.
It said the dam would inundate 336 villages
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