Opinion (Spotlight Weekly)

Sun-Kosi Project And Nepal's Economy

By Ananda Bahadur Thapa

Nepal's economy is very much dependant on agriculture. Few industries that have appeared in recent years also rely mostly on agriculture based raw materials. Thus agricultural sector occupies the dominant position in our country's economy and it will continue to remain in that position for a very long time to come in future . Unfortunately we have not been paying adequate attention to increase our agricultural production. Until the mid 1980s Nepal was exporting food grains to our neighbouring countries. The export used to be over 100,000 tons per annum. Now the situation has completely reversed. At present we have become net importer.

Problem of Food Grains Shortages

In recent years Nepal's demand for food grains is steadily increasing whereas the production has remained almost at the same level. Very recently it was estimated that Nepal is only about 80 ñ 85 percent self sufficient in food grains production. We are now importing in huge quantity edible oil from abroad to meet the ever increasing demand for oil in the country. The gap between the demand for food grains and its production is widening due to rapid increase in population. Growing dependence on import of agricultural products has serious adverse impact on country's economy and hence on country's trade and industry also.

The problem of growing food grains shortage in our country must be dealt with renewed vigour and determination. We should lay strong emphasis on our national plans to boost agricultural production. It can hardly be denied that for this purpose the potential for area expansion of the cultivated lands is virtually non existent in Nepal. So it would be completely unthinkable to attain our future goals to achieve significant agricultural production increase without vast expansion of irrigation accompanied by improved farming practices. Attention of the international institutions like the FAO and UNDP was drawn as early as 1960s to this problem. They had helped Nepal to conduct studies to develop irrigation projects like the Sun-Kosi diversion into Terai to cope with the problems of future food grains shortages. The Sun-Kosi diversion project was expected to transfer into the Terai very big volume of Sun-Kosi water for bringing under year round irrigation large area of lands. The main emphasis of the Sun-Kosi project was on irrigation in dry months when the demand for the irrigation water is the highest and on the other hand the productivity is also much greater because of higher ambient temperature. Very recently our planners have astonished the farmers by recommending them to use extensively pumped ground water for irrigation in the dry months. Everybody knows very well that such irrigation could not pay off barring few cases that involved irrigation of lands under high valued crops like the vegetables. There are some obvious disadvantages of widespread use of this type of irrigation in dry seasons in our country. During dry season period that lasts about 8 months there is too little rainfall so water needed for irrigation would have to be pumped virtually nonintermittently. Water requirement for irrigation would also be very high because of low atmospheric humidity and high day time temperature. The level of the groundwater table would also be very low that would necessitate high consumption of energy for pumping.

UNDP / FAO Helped Irrigation Study

In 1960s UNDP/FAO provided grant assistance to Nepal to conduct studies to identify appropriate projects to develop irrigation in the Eastern Terai. The study identified the Sun-Kosi diversion to be the most appropriate project to irrigate lands in the Eastern Terai. The Sun-Kosi river carries plentiful of flow throughout the year On the other hand even the rivers like the Kamla and Bagmati carry significantly small flow during the dry season months when the demand for irrigation is the highest. Moreover the dry season flow of all these rivers is observed to be steadily decreasing over the years due to several adverse factors. The most important among such factors are the continued reduction in coverage of the forest land in the catchment areas, and increasing withdrawals of water in the hill areas for consumptive use particularly irrigation. A Master Plan Study on the Kosi River water resources was prepared by JICA technical team in 1985. The Sun-Kosi diversion for irrigating lands in the Eastern and Central Terai has been identified as one of the schemes at the very top in priority.

The Sun-Kosi Dam Proect

It has been proposed in the study carried out with the assistance of UNDP/FAO to build a 120 meters high concrete dam at a location immediately after the confluence of the Sun-Kosi and Dudh-Kosi. Two possible alternatives had been examined in the study involving the hydropower component of the project. For the non-peaking type alternative the installed capacity was 330 MW. It was proposed to adopt an installed capacity of 1,050 MW if the power station was to be developed as a peaking power station. It had been foreseen to provide a small pond by damming a small stream crossing the path of the headrace tunnel about 2.5 km upstream from the power station. There were two serious drawbacks to taking up at that time this project for implementation. The capacity of the hydropower station was too big for the use of the entire generated electricity within Nepal. Another cause for concern was that the useful life of the storage reservoir of this project would have been quite short because the dam height was only 120 meters. Now it has been found that the height of the Sun-Kosi dam could be further raised upto 196 meters Furthermore based on very recent global experience on storage reservoir operation it would be possible to consider that the useful life of the Sun-Kosi reservoir could be very long even if the dam height would have been limited to only 120 meters. For the Sun-Kosi type storage reservoir the density current can be used to flush out sediments deposited in the reservoir and extend indefinitely the useful life. This type of flushing is possible if the water in excessively big volume is spilled across the dam, At present China has made considerable progress in conducting this type of research. It is said that China is intending to use this technique in operation of the famous Three Gorges Project reservoir.

Indian Study

Attention of the Indian Government was also drawn to the project to build a dam across the Sun-Kosi river immediately after the Second World War. At that time India was trying to find a solution to Kosi flood problem which was endangering the life and property of millions. India had seen some advantage in building separate storage dams in Sun-Kosi, Tamar and Arun rivers instead of a single big storage dam at Brahachetra to control the Kosi river floods. The survey team had favoured Kurule dam site on the Sun-Kosi River because it appeared to be geologically sound and allowed to have a big storage reservoir that extended in Dudh-Kosi and Sun-Kosi valleys. This idea was later on dropped because the Kurule site identified to build a big storage dam was not easily accessible at that time.

Multipurposse Sun-Kosi Project

The most important function of the Sun-Kosi storage dam project would be to minimize the Kosi flood danger to life and property of millions in our region until the giant Kosi dam project would be completed which might take a very long time despite our immense efforts. It is not uncommon to build storage dams primarily for flood control. A document published by the United States Department of Energy under the heading HYDROPOWER FACTS, 1998 indicates that out of the total dams built in the USA the primary benefit of 15% is flood control. The primary benefits of only 2% and 11% are hydropower and irrigation respectively.

A diversion tunnel would be built to deliver the water stored in the Sun-Kosi reservoir into the Kamla valley. The Sun-Kosi water thus diverted would help to bring under irrigation vast areas of lands in the Terai after being used for power generation. The firm power generation of the Sun-Kosi hydropower could go up to 5000 GWh which is roughly 25% of the total Karnali (Chisapani) power generation. The project is expected to irrigate all the year round about 300,000 ha of lands in Nepal. These are the preliminary salient features of the Sun-Kosi project. In view of the urgency to implement this project for Kosi flood control Nepal should expedite the preparatory works including the detailed studies. Nepal would be totally responsible to implement this project whereas Indian's role would be to provide help in mobilizing financial resources necessary to implement this project. Selling surplus power to India might not be too difficult as long as the rates are close to the recent purchase price of the electricity supplied by other private producers in India. Nepal and India have already signed the following two agreements that concern the Sun-Kosi project which make very clear India's acceptance of Nepal's full right to draw Sun-Kosi water for irrigation or any other purposes within Nepal and at the same time India's commitment to help Nepal in implementing this project.

The Revised Kosi Treaty, 1966

HMG shall have every right to withdraw for irrigation and for any other purpose in Nepal water from the Kosi river and from the Sun-Kosi river or within the Kosi basin from any other tributaries of the Kosi river as may be required from time to time. The Union (it indicates India) shall have the right to regulate all the balance of supplies in the Kosi river at the barrage site thus available from time to time and to generate power in the Eastern Canal.

Kosi Study Agreement, 1997

Detailed study of the Sun-Kosi high dam project and the Kosi high dam project would be carried out. The Kosi dam study would also include the detailed study of a waterway to link Nepal with the Ganges. The navigation study would cover both the options - a separate navigation canal and the use of natural channel. India has agreed to bear the entire cost of all these detailed studies.

Industry Sector

Needless to explain that it would be in the best interest of Nepal to pursue a policy to exploit our water and other natural resources as far as possible for use within our own country to achieve rapid economic growth that would help to raise the living standard of the common people at a much faster pace. The Sun-Kosi dam project could be the most appropriate scheme that would simultaneously produce significantly strong positive impact on the growth of ruler economy and at the same time open a new avenue to industrial development in the urban areas. Thus this project could help to provide an unlimited opportunity for the growth of commerce and industry within the country.

If we are really concerned for the development of the country then perhaps we should always bear in our mind that the exploitation of water resources alone should not be our goal. We have before us glaring lessons. For example, Bihar, just after the independence of India, was one of the prosperous states. It was very rich in mineral resources. After a half century of widespread exploitation of its vast mineral wealth, Bihar has become the poorest state of India. States like Haryana and the former East Punjab in India, and the former West Punjab in Pakistan have achieved the highest degree of success in raising the living standard of the people because they were able to exploit their water resources for the development of their own regions by building Bhakra, Mangla and other dams.

In Conclusion

Despite the fact that the immediate implementation of the Sun-Kosi diversion project would help to a considerable extent to resolve our country's agriculture and industrial development problems, it is equally important for the safety of life and property of millions in our region. It is urgent that the full attention of the government bodies, academic institutions, international institutions stationed in Nepal like ICIMOD, IUCN, etc. be drawn to Sun-Kosi and Kosi problems.