SUNS4371 Wednesday 10 February 1999

South Asia: Solving A Himalayan water problem



Kodari, Nepal, Feb 8 (IPS/Mahesh Uniyal) -- The two border towns are starkly different though they are linked by a bridge built over a mountain river flowing south into Nepal from the high Tibetan plateau.

Khasa, across the 'Friendship Bridge' and upstream of the Bhoti Kosi River here, is a modern city of steel and concrete, while Kodari, in Nepal, is a small settlement of mud, wood and brick shacks.

The two outposts of the ancient Nepal-Tibet trade route typify the stark contrast between China, one of the world's fastest growing economies, and this country which is rated among the poorest.

Development planners in the region, like the multilateral lenders, believe that the key to bridging this gulf lies in harnessing Himalayan rivers like the Bhoti Kosi, a tributary of the mighty Kosi which flows into India.

Nepal's rivers have an estimated potential of 83,000 MW of electricity, only a fraction of which - 280 MW - has been tapped so far.

Already 10 kms downstream of Kodari, some 120 Chinese experts are working with a U.S. power company to help build a 45 MW hydroelectric plant, the first private power project in Nepal.

Kathmandu is keen to harvest "hydro-dollars" for the country's development from electricity exports to power-hungry India, Nepal's southern neighbour.

The series of large dams and barrages built or planned on the Himalayan rivers are also seen as crucial for saving the north Indian plains and Bangladesh from the annual fury of floods and helping quench their
growing thirst for farm irrigation. One of the main reasons for building the large dams and also the greatest risk in doing so is the fact that 80% of annual precipitation is from three months of monsoon rains.

But the big projects have been bones of contention with an anti-dam campaign even forcing the government to scrap the giant World Bank-funded Arun III project across the Arun River in 1995.

A half century-old proposal to tackle the twin problem of water shortage and annual flooding of large tracts in the Indian state of Bihar and in Bangladesh is to dam the Kosi across the deep mountain gorge at Barah Kshetra near the Nepal-India border. The proposed 269 metre-high Kosi dam at a point where it emerges from the Nepal foothills, would be the world's second highest and also generate over 3,000 MW power.

"This can do a lot for the floods in Bangladesh and also help replenish the lean water flows in the Ganges," says Emaduddin Ahmad of Bangladesh's government-funded Surface Water Modelling Centre.

"It will help reduce salinity in Bangladesh, revive fisheries and irrigate farms," he adds, but cautions that the dam should be built only if studies show that smaller dams would not be able to achieve the purpose.

Leading Nepalese water expert and natural resource economist Dipak Gyawali thinks that large dams in his country are "hardly a solution" to the floods in Bihar and Bangladesh.

Both Gyawali and Indian water management expert Jayant Bandopadhyaya point out that it is not feasible to build enough storage reservoirs to regulate the immense volume of water flowing down the Himalayan rivers.

Gyawali also argues that the multi-billion dollar dams pay for themselves by selling electricity and irrigation water and this necessitates keeping the storage level in the reservoirs high. He points to the "inherent contradiction" in combining flood control with the other two objectives. "For flood control, the reservoir has to be kept as low as possible," he explains.

Vijay Kumar, of the activist Freedom from Flood Campaign in Bihar, too dismisses the claim that large dams in Nepal will help control floods in India and Bangladesh.

Pro-small dam lobbies also argue that large dams like the proposed 10,800 MW project on the Karnali river in western Nepal to be built by the U.S. energy company Enron, cannot last their projected life spans. Himalayan rivers carry huge amounts of silt and this will fill up the reservoirs, they argue.

Besides good science and good economics, tapping the Himalayan water riches also needs good politics, point out independent experts. The Himalayan rivers stir political passions inKathmandu, and to a lesser extent in Dhaka. Scientific information on river water flows is "highly guarded" in New Delhi and Dhaka, say Bandopadhyaya and Ahmad.

Regional experts plead for putting national politics aside in harnessing the Himalayan rivers. "Regional cooperation is needed in South Asia for minimising the risk in harnessing the Himalayan rivers," says Ahmad.
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