Opinion (Spotlight Weekly)

Changing Nepal’s Geography: Kosi Navigation Canal

By Dr. AB Thapa

All those involved in the economic development of Nepal agree that the poverty, backwardness and under-development of our country to a great extent have resulted from our country being landlocked. However, Nepal is not the only landlocked country in the world. Even the developed countries like Switzerland and Austria are landlocked. Those countries were able to find a good solution to clear this difficult natural hurdle. They succeeded in opening inland waterways suited for the operation of large river vessels that provided them unhindered access to the seaport. There are big river harbours inside those countries to handle incoming and outgoing goods transported by waterways. Those countries do not have to worry about the maximum allowable size of the goods in transit. There are always restriction on maximum allowable size when the goods are transported by other modes of surface transportation. Water-borne transportation is also the cheapest mode of transportation. It would not be an exaggeration to say that those countries have changed their geography. Now-a-days the coastal river carriers ( CRC vessels) can directly link these countries with the coastal ports of the rest of Europe.

Nepal Also Could Change Its Geography

Like Austria and Switzerland, we also could change the geography of Nepal. The groundwork for this highly challenging task for our country has already been laid. Unfortunately all our countrymen even including our intellectuals are completely unaware of it. There is a great danger that our country could trample on this great opportunity because of our shortsightedness and lack of a clear vision of Nepal’s development perspective.

Nepal had shown keen interest since 1967 to develop inland waterway through India that would provide a seaport outlet for our country. In several occasions our country had approached India to allow to develop such waterway. But Nepal never got an affirmative nod from India The year 1997 was, however, a turning point. India accepted our proposal to develop the Kosi waterway. They endorsed our proposal to conduct detailed feasibility study of about 165 km long navigation canal linking Chatra in Nepal with the Ganges river in India near Kursella. India has even agreed to bear the entire cost of the feasibility study. The 1997 Indo-Nepal agreement to conduct jointly a detailed feasibility study of the Kosi Navigation Canal to be ultimately developed as a part of the Kosi High Dam Project is indeed a landmark event. The proposed navigation canal could open up boundless new opportunities for rapid expansion of our country's trade and industrial development activities, and such expansion is indispensable for faster economic growth which in its part is an essential prerequisite for improving the desperate living condition of a vast number of our people still living far below the line of poverty Unfortunately we are yet very slow to realize the significance of the proposed canal navigation.

Inland Water Transportation is The Cheapest

The coefficient of friction on water is very small. One horsepower can pull 4,000 kg on water while on road and rail, it can move only 150 kg and 500 kg respectively. In the countries in Europe and America the inland water transport has established itself as the cheapest mode of transportation. In the USA, where various modes of transportation freely competing with one another are equally developed the inland water transport has been found to be 5 times cheaper than the railway transportation and 21 times cheaper than the road transportation.

The USA had about 25000 miles of internal commercial navigable channels in 1968, of which 15000 miles provided operating depths of nine feet or more. The nine-foot draft is considered standard for barge and towing industry operations in the USA. In 1966 about 490 million tons of freight was carried by all kinds of river ships in the USA.

An Unified European Network was agreed with regard to the whole of Europe that category IV waterways should be the standard link between river basins. This category should be able to accommodate 1350-1500 ton vessels. The locks should have a minimum depth of 3.5 m over the sill.

A comparative study of inland water transport cost for small rivers vis-à-vis road transportation cost on region-wise basis made in the former USSR shows that by comparison with inland water transportation the road transportation was almost 10 times costly in Kuibshev region. It is about 4 times expensive in Moscow region.

In 1967 some 450 million tons of the cargoes were carried by all kinds of river-ships in the former Soviet Union.

It is presented in a report published very recently by the Government of Bangladesh that the volume of freight carried by water in Bangladesh stands at approximately 56 million ton/year. The water transportation charges are said to be less than 10% of the corresponding charges by road or railway.

According to a study conducted on behalf of the German State Railway to move one ton of goods in Germany one kilometer, it costs 14 pfenings by rail and 29 pfenings by road, but just 4 pfenings by inland waterway. It shows that the inland water transportation is the cheapest by comparison with other modes of transportation.

Safety And Reliability

Apart from being a very cheap mode of transportation, the inland water transportation is the safest and the most reliable form of transportation with very little risks of pilferage, loss and damage of goods during the carriage. Such type of transportation is very convenient for moving the goods and equipments that are too big and heavy. There are other inherent advantages of the inland water transportation. Some of them are listed below:

( i) Ability to open market for otherwise non-marketable commodities.- It would thus be possible for Nepal to deliver at low transportation cost industrial raw materials like coal, ores, crude oil etc. from Haldia port and other parts of India. Similarly it would be possible to export construction materials like the sand, gravel, stones etc. from Nepal. In the USA in 1966 river barges had carried about 52 million tons of sand and gravel.

( ii) Stimulates industrial production. - Past experience of other countries show that the development of inland waterway would stimulate industrial production.

(iii) Ability to attract production facilities to water-oriented locations in the interior and thereby aid in their dispersal from the costal congested areas, as a result the waterway could help to open up exciting possibilities for the growth of big industries inside Nepal at locations far away from the seaports.

(iv) Ability to fit services into production line processes for raw materials movement.

Advantages of Kosi Canal Waterway

The use of the Kosi canal for navigation instead of natural river course would allow to develop this very important waterway for Nepal on a par with the waterways that exist in Europe and America. Some of the overwhelming advantages of the canal waterway linking Chatra with the Kursella where Kosi merges with the Ganges are described below:

The Distance Would Be Short - The navigation canal would follow the shortest route to the Ganges river. The length of the Kosi navigation canal from Indo-Nepal border near Birpur to the Ganges is expected to be only about 120 km, whereas the length of the river route to cover the same stretch would have been about 270 km.

Decrease in Water Losses - Withdrawal of water from the river for irrigation or other purposes would have to be significantly restricted to maintain adequate depths if the natural river channel is to be used for navigation. In case of navigation canal, the water requirement to maintain adequate depths would be very small. The problem of water losses in operation of navigation canal would not even arise if such canal is to be used as a conveyance system to deliver water for irrigation purposes.

Increased Water Depths - The entry point of the Kosi navigation canal into the Ganges is near the extreme tail end of this river, as a result, the Ganges river channel is sure to be quite deep on this stretch allowing to operate relatively large river vessels. Moreover, there might have already been significant improvement in navigability of the Ganges river right up to the mouth of the Kosi navigation canal into the Ganges due to increase in water depths after the completion of the Farakka Barrage. The Farakka Barrage reservoir backwater must have extended further upstream along the Ganges far beyond the mouth the Kosi River.

Multipurpose Project and Kosi Canal Waterway

The Kosi navigation canal will be a component of the Kosi High Dam Multipurpose Project. There are good examples in the past when big multipurpose projects had helped to develop inland navigation.

The river Rhine is one of such examples. To improve navigation and to produce hydroelectric energy, France, by the Treaty of Versailles, diverted the Rhine water below Basel into a canal that joins the Rhine at Neu Breisach. This helped to significantly improve the navigation conditions that permitted to ply barges of 1,500 tons capacity on that stretch of the river.

At present China is building the mammoth Three Gorges Project. Inland navigation is one of the major components of that project. The Yangtze river is even now extensively used for water transportation. The capacity of the Yangtze river waterway constitutes 78% of the China’s total inland river transportation capacity. Despite such extensive uses, the navigation condition of its natural course could not fully meet the growing requirements of China’s fast growing economy. There were bottlenecks from Chongqin in Sichuan province to Yichang in Hubei province. Here, the river flows through an area of high mountains and deep valleys, with considerable turbulence and dangerous shoals, which had limited the development of the Yangtze waterway. Upon completion of the Three Gorges Project, the reservoir backwater would reach Chonqin and the annual transportation capacity for freight would be increased to 50 million tons, with costs reduced by 35-37 percent. For half of each year when the reservoir water level is high, 10000 ton ships would be able to sail right up to the Jiulongpo port of Chongqing. During dry seasons, the navigation conditions of the river downstream of the dam will also be improved due to an increase in the low water flow. Permanent double-line locks would be provided as the main navigation facilities after the project is commissioned. The locks would meet the requirements of a single direction downstream freight volume of 50 million ton, the projected volume for the year 2030, and they would allow passage of 10000 ton ship fleets. A vertical ship lift is also provided as an express passage for passenger traffic and also for certain specific types of ship.

The Most Recent Navigatyion Canal

An example of the most recent navigation canal is the Main-Danube Canal in Germany. This canal is 171 km long. Its construction was completed very recently in 1990s. The canal winds through some of the most challenging, scenic, and environmentally sensitive landscape in Germany. The Altmuhl Valley traversed by the canal is one of the most beautiful and environmentally fragile in Bavaria. It is this factor that lies behind a long and often passionate opposition to this project. However, Germany did not listen to the environmentalists opposing the canal scheme who regarded that it would be the end of the Altmuhl valley.. Stair step locks on the Main River lift barge traffic to Bamburg, northern entry point to the canal. From there 11 locks raise ships to the highest point on any commercial waterway in Europe about 180 m above Bamburg. Five more locks then lower vessels to Kelheim, the southern terminus of the canal. The waterway will accommodate huge Euro-barges carrying up to 2,425 tons of bulk cargo, the equivalent of 78 truck trailers.

In Conclusion

There is no point always cursing the nature for our country being landlocked. Like the Switzerland and Austria, we also could clear this natural hurdle. We should work with renewed vigor and strong determination to accomplish this extremely important mission that requires us to develop waterway leading to a seaport outlet for our country. This way we could change the geography of Nepal.

(Dr. Thapa writes on water resources)