National 7 (Spotlight Weekly)

Sarada Barrage Letters from India

By SB Pun/July, 2003

The Mahakali Treaty of 1996, "Noting the Exchange of Letters of 1920 through which both the Parties had entered into an arrangement for the construction of the Sarada Barrage in the Mahakali River, whereby Nepal is to receive some waters from the said Barrage; ... Following the conclusion of this Treaty, the earlier understandings reached between the Parties concerning the utilization of the waters of the Mahakali river from the Sarada Barrage and the Tanakpur Barrage, which have been incorporated herein, shall be deemed to have been replaced by this Treaty.", has thus made redundant the 1920 Letter of Exchange on the Sarada Barrage between Chandra SJB Rana and British India. Prior to the signing of that Letter of Exchange, the following interesting letter of 3rd May 1916 that the then British Resident/Nepal, J Manners Smith, wrote to the then Prime Minister of Nepal, Chandra SJB Rana, has been reproduced below:

No 923

The Residency, Nepal

3rd May, 1916

My dear Maharaja:

The Government of India has for sometime past had under consideration the question of the utilization of the waters of the Sarada river for the irrigation of land in the United Provinces and now desire to recommend to the Secretary of State for sanction the scheme known as the Sarda Kichha Feeder Project.

Your Excellency will remember that in 1910 the Nepal Government granted permission for the survey of the Sarda river channel in connection with the Sarda-Ganges-Jamna Feeder Project from Baramdeo Mandi to a point one mile below Banbasa ferry.

In the original project of 1911 the proposed Headworks were situated entirely in British Territory at Solani Goth. In the years during which the project was in course of preparation practically the whole cold weather supply of water came down the western channel, only a very a small amount passing down the main river.

Since the project was prepared, however, the state of the river has altered a great deal. After the big flood of 1910 the river showed signs of swinging over towards the Nepal bank below Tanakpur and in the last four years the cold weather stream has completely changed its course, until the whole winter supply is now in the Nepal side, and the Solani Goth channel is completely shoaled up. In consequence, to enable the project to be carried out, a change in the site of the Headworks has been necessitated. It is now proposed to locate the weir across the eastern channel of the Sarda river at Banbasa ferry about a mile below Solani Goth. This site has been selected because it is here that the river is narrowest. At this point, however, practically the whole river bed is in Nepal territory, the two channels under the high western bank being comparatively insignificant.

Even at this point it will be necessary to locate the left or eastern flank of the weir in the river bed tying it to the higher ground in Nepal territory by means of afflux bunds both up and down stream. In order to ensure proper control over the river the Government of India are advised that it will be necessary to acquire a strip of land on the east side of the river which is now Nepal territory. As the area in question is understood to be waste and jungle the Government of India hope that the Nepal Government will kindly consent to its occupation for the above purpose.

I enclose for Your Excellencyís information (1) a survey plan of the proposed Headworks (to be kindly returned when done with), and (2) a map of the Sarda Canal project 1915 showing the extent of Nepal territory which it is desired to acquire in connection therewith.

When Your Excellency has been able to consider the proposal I shall be glad to speak to Your Excellency about it and communicate your views regarding it to the Government of India.

With kind regards,

Yours very sincerely,

J. Manners Smith

To,

Lt. Gen. His Excellency Maharaja Sir Chandra Shumshere Jung Bahadur Rana

GCG,GCSI,GCVO,DCL, Prime Minister and Marshal of Nepal

This 87-year old letter reveal a number of very interesting features on water resources development. They are:

* Nearly a century ago, British India planned the Sarada Kichha Project to utilize the waters of the Sarada river for irrigating lands in United Province now Uttar Pradesh;

* British India practiced the principle of "prior informing" by requesting for permission to survey the Sarada river and permission duly granted by Nepal in 1910;

* Despite the original Sarada Kichha Project of 1911ís proposed headworks being entirely in British India Territory at Solani Goth, Nepalís permission to survey still requested;

* By 1910 itself, British India had planned the Sarada-Ganges-Jamuna Feeder Project to inter-link these three river basins;

* After the big 1910 flood, Sarada started to move eastwards and by 1916 the whole dry season flow (cold weather supply/winter supply) was entirely in Nepal territory;

* The British, then, proposed to locate the headworks at Banbasa in Nepal, a mile below Solani Goth;

* For this purpose, the British wanted "to acquire a strip of land" in the Nepal territory and "hopes that the Nepal Government will kindly consent to its occupation";

* Survey plan of proposed headworks and map of the Nepal territory desired to be acquired enclosed with the letter to the Prime Minister.

It was only four years after receipt of the above letter that Chandra SJB Rana formally put in his signature in August 23, 1920 to the Letter of Exchange with the British Legation at Kathmandu. One can only guess what kind of "due diligence" was applied by the Nepal Government during that interval of four years.

There is a clause of that Letter of Exchange:

(3) That the Nepal Government would transfer necessary land for the construction and maintenance of canal works which is provisionally estimated at 4000 acres and would receive land equal in area from the British Government. The land to be taken from the Nepalese territory will, after demarcation be measured and then land equal in area to it will be given to Nepal by the said Government.

This indicated a trading in 4,000 acres (about 16 square Kilometers) of "land for land in equal area" for the Banbasa/Nepal land by the British/India land presumably at Bardiya. From the J. Manners Smith letter of 1916, let us move forward to the following 1946 letter of KN Kathpalia/Deputy Secretary, Government of Public Works Department, UP to the Secretary/External Affairs Department, Government of India, New Delhi with a copy to the Minister, Nepal. One should remember that in July 1946 the British had not as yet relinquished their "raj" in India.

Letter No. 733 W/XXIII/1687-1939 dated 23.7.46

From

KN Kathpalia, Esquire, ISE

Deputy Secretary

Government of Public Works Department, UP

Subject: Exchange of Land with Nepal in connexion with Sarada Kitcha Project

Sir,

1. I am directed to refer to your letter No. 857-CA/46 dated February 14, 1946 in which this Government was referred to the letter No. 922 dated January 24, 1946 from His Majestyís Government Minister, Nepal and asked for further comments of the Provincial Government.

2. I am to say that the area of the land shown at "B" in the sketch map forwarded with this Governmentís letter No. 1408W/168W-1937, dated November 23, 1944 which the Nepal Government have accepted for transfer to them, is 36.68 acres. This area was offered by Government for transfer to Nepal to rectify the error of 31.47 acres in the computation of land caused during the survey of 1934 and in exchange for 5.21 acres of Nepal land (shown at "A" on the sketch map in which about 80 feet of the existing right Downstream Guide Bund projects at present. The demolition of this Bund along with the low boulder bund in plot "C" would be most undesirable from the point of view of the protection of the Chaure-pani Shsi malarial drain against attack by the Sarada river.

3. I am therefore to request that if the Government of India have no objection, the Nepal Government may kindly be moved to receive an Engineer representative of this province to explain this Government difficulties to them with a view to persuade them to reconsider their decision regarding the exchange of 5.21 acres of land in plot "A" and 116.32 acres in plot "C" for an equal area of in plot "B" and "D" as proposed in paragraph 6 of this Governmentís letter No. 1408/163W-1939 dated November 25, 1944.

4. I am to add that, if the Nepal Government are not agreeable to this proposal, they may kindly be requested to let this Government have the area in question on a long term lease on terms mutually agreed upon.

This 36.68 acres was a computation error, officially recognized and offered by British India and even accepted by Nepal government. It is, however, believed that this 36.68 acres of land at Brahmadev Mandi of the colonial British Raj has, to this date, not been handed over by Republic India to the government of Nepal.

These two old but interesting letters of Sarada Barrage are eloquent examples of some of the etiquettes and ground rules that should be meticulously borne in mind when executing water resources development projects:

* nearly a century ago, the British took due cognizance of the waters of Nepal for irrigating the fertile Indian plains;

* India believes that water is a much more "priority commodity" than its oft quoted "roti, kapada aur makan";

* in this spirit, the Kosi and Gandak treaties concluded;

* unlike the Sarada project, India failed to notify Nepal of its intended Tanakpur project;

* this unilaterally built Tanakpur barrage turned into an "urgency case" when the Mahakali river started to cut the eastern embankments in Nepal, exactly in the same fashion as mentioned in the J. Manners Smith letter regarding the Sarada project;

* an unwary GP Koirala signed the famous Tanakpur MOU in December 1991 that our Supreme Court later termed it the Treaty;

* the controversial Tanakpur issue kneaded and baked by the two governments into the "integrated Mahakali package";

* the Mahakali Treaty of February 1996 "hustled" through and unbelievably in seven months a cheering thumping majority of our two Houses of Parliament ratified it in September 1996; quite in contrast to the four years of due diligence that Chandra Shumshere took in the Sarada Barrage project.

Seven years down the road, much water has flowed in the Mahakali river to be diverted by the Tanakpur barrage to irrigate the fertile granaries of Uttar Pradesh while we enjoy the 70 million units free. The Mahakali Treaty continues to slumber but other unilateral projects like the Laxmanpur barrage, Khurda Lautan, Mahalisagar etc. continue to sprout on our border inundating Nepalese fields and villages. If India and Nepal are to cooperate on the development of water resources then let us all learn from the above nearly-a-century old Sarada barrage letters.

Note: This is to acknowledge with thanks Dr. Dwarika Nath Dhungel, former Secretary of the Ministry of Water Resources and presently Executive Director of IIDS, for kindly availing me the copy of the above two letters of J. Manners and KN Kathpalia. The black bold in those two letters are all mine. --- SB Pun

(Pun writes on water resources)