Hydro Diplomacy

Indian state companies are being given contracts to build a slew of major hydropower projects in Nepal, driving out Chinese and other investors. India’s strategic interest is to build storage dams upstream to regulate flow in the tributaries of the Ganges. 

Things were no different two decades ago when Delhi tied to rope Nepal in on its gigantic river-linking project. Excerpts from a report published 20 years ago this week in issue #168 31 October – 6 November 2003:

The super-ambitious $12 billion scheme will take 16 years to build and will link 36 of India’s rivers, taking water from where there is a lot of it to areas where there is less for irrigation, power and human consumption.

But opposition to the project from environmentalists is growing within India, and murmurs of discontent are now being heard in Bangladesh and Nepal. So far, Nepali officialdom has been blissfully unaware of the plan, even though Nepali rivers would be critical for regulating lean season flow to the tributaries of the Ganga.

“Up to 60 percent of the water in the Ganga comes from Nepal, so the river-linking scheme will have to get Nepal involved,” says Sudhirendar Sharma, of The Ecological Foundation in New Delhi. Some Nepali activists suspect India is already working towards large reservoirs in Nepal that will dove-tail into the river-linking scheme by the time it comes into operation.

Nagma Mallick, First Secretary (Commerce) at the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu, denies this, saying: “There is no linkage between the recent India-Nepal talks on hydropower and India’s river-linking project.”

Still, there is nervousness among Nepali water planners. Reservoirs would inundate large tracts of fertile valleys, store monsoon runoff and release the water in the lean season downstream to linked rivers in India. Logically any new project India gets involved in Nepal henceforth will be ones that will fit its river-linking blueprint.

For archived material of Nepali Times of the past 20 years, site search: nepalitimes.com