Opinion (Spotlight Weekly)

Planning Commission And Sunkosi Project

By Dr. A.B. Thapa

The Kosi River is now on the verge of shifting from its course to the east far away from its present position. All those involved so far in the Kosi study are alerting us about this danger. Needless to explain that losses of lives and properties would be frightfully too large whenever such incident would take place. Mr. F. A. Shilling Field based on his 25 years long study of the Kosi River had made important observations about the Kosi River behavior more than a century ago. He had said “ The westward movement in such ( Kosi) oscillation is slow and is in a series of steps, each of which is attended with damage to property of temporary nature. The eastward movement of the oscillation will probably be accompanied with great loss of life and property.”

All experts familiar with the hydraulic engineering and also the Kosi River problems have been saying in unison that storage reservoirs should be provided at the earliest to avert Kosi flood disaster. We do not have alternative but to build large storage dams. The completion of the construction of the mammoth Kosi storage dam project together with its detailed study is going to take a very long time, and, as a result, it has turned out that we must, as soon as possible, implement the relatively small Sunkosi storage dam project to prevent the Kosi flood disaster in the interim period until the completion of the Kosi dam project. Thus it is absolutely imperative that the Sunkosi storage project be implemented as soon as possible to save the life and property of tens of thousands of our people living in Sunsari and Morang districts. This task, however, is not going to be a burden to our economy. We were seeking to implement the Sunkosi project for a long time. It is fortunate that we would be able to save the life and property of tens of thousands of our people by implementing that same project which is at the very top on the list of our priority.

Planning Commission Should Be Concerned

It appears that the National Planning Commission is not yet fully aware of the gravity of the situation that would arise if the Kosi problems are not solved on time. It would be very unfortunate if the National Planning Commission continued to distance itself from the Kosi River related matters. The Planning Commission should be actively involved in the resolution of the Kosi problems. The Kosi River development has already emerged as the most important task before us requiring immediate attention of the whole country. Surprisingly very few of us are aware of it despite the fact that the life and property of millions in Nepal and India are already at great risk. The Kosi challenge is enormous. Fortunately the Kosi problems can be temporarily resolved by implementing the Sunkosi storage dam project. The National Planning Commission should be thoroughly convinced of the correctness of such conclusion. Needless to explain that our country would be immensely rewarded if we succeeded in implementing the Sunkosi project in near future. The 1997 Kosi study agreement signed between Nepal and India has set the stage for Indian cooperation in the implementation of the Sunkosi project. We should take initiative in implementation of the Sunkosi project on our own because it is our project and we are the direct beneficiary of this project. Indian experts clearly understand that India must help Nepal in implementation of this project in every possible way to prevent the Kosi river from laying waste hundreds of thousands of hectares of land in North Bihar and possibly West Bengal in one big sweep.

The Sunkosi project could provide an excellent opportunity for the swift growth of our country's stagnant economy. Moreover, we might be able to implement this project on our own without excessively increasing the present level of foreign assistance earmarked by donors for the development of our country. Unfortunately, many of us including the donors actively engaged in Nepal's water resources development are kept in dark and we are virtually unaware of such amazingly bright prospects. Such lack of awareness of our country's water resources development problems can be very harmful. Some donors providing generous assistance in Nepal's water resources development are sometimes even misled. Very recently such assistance was misused to preclude the viability of the Sunkosi and Kosi dam projects , which had already been identified to be indispensable to save the life and property of millions. It is sad to note that due to lack of awareness of the country’s water resources problems, the news of such incidents never worried even those institutions directly involved in the development of our water resources. Thus, it should be admitted that the full understanding of the Sunkosi project- related matters in all quarters is necessary if we do not want to fall prey to our own faulty planning. Only the concerted efforts by all stakeholders including the donors can help to prevent the biggest water induced disaster threatening our region..

The Sunkosi Dam Project

The Sunkosi dam as well as the Kosi dam will be needed to control the Kosi river in the long run. It has already been explained that the construction of the small Sunkosi dam project should be taken up first to prevent the Kosi flood disaster in the interim period until the implementation of the mammoth Kosi dam project There is yet another overriding justification for implementing first the Sunkosi project. The Sunkosi dam project would have to be the first to be completed or else it would not be possible later on to build it on technical grounds Fortunately the Kosi dam project can be implemented even after the completion of the Sunkosi dam project. . The idea of constructing a storage dam across the Sunkosi at Kurule is not a new one. Many technical teams were involved in the past for conducting the study of this project.

An Indian technical team was the first to conduct a reconnaissance study of the Sunkosi dam site for the Kosi flood control in 1946. The team had favored Kurule dam site because it appeared geologically sound and allowed to have a big storage reservoir that extended to Dudhkosi and Sunkosi valleys.

Nepal's attention was drawn to Sunkosi diversion project to irrigate lands in Terai. A prefeasibility level study of the Sunkosi dam project for irrigation in Terai was completed in 1968 under the technical and financial assistance of the UNDP/FAO. This study has also identified Kurule as the appropriate site for the Sunkosi dam linked with a tunnel to deliver the Sunkosi water to Terai. The Master Plan study of the Kosi basin prepared under Japanese assistance in 1985 endorsed the same location for the Sunkosi dam project.

Limited External Support Needed

The main component of the Sunkosi dam project urgently needed for the control of the Kosi flood is the dam itself. The dam height, according to Kosi basin master plan, is going to be relatively small. It is expected to be between 147 m and 195 m . In initial stage, the capacity of the power station could be only about 600 MW. The development of irrigation expected to cover a total net area of about three lacks ha in Nepal could be spread over a long period. In this way, it would be possible to bring down the initial investment on irrigation infrastructure development and hence the total initial cost of the project.

The Sunkosi dam project is not too big in size although the benefit accruable to Nepal from this project is enormous. If the factors like the easy accessibility to Sunkosi project site and short distance needed for the transmission of the electricity from its power house to the main national grid are also taken into account then the total initial cost of the Sunkosi project would be fairly close to the 400 MW Arun-3 project cost. It implies that Nepal would be considered perfectly capable to implement on her own the Sunkosi project under the financial assistance of foreign donors because Nepal was qualified by the donor community to be competent to implement - way back nearly two decades ago - the Arun-3 project.

Cheap Electricity

The Sunkosi dam would anyway be needed for the flood control, and similarly the diversion tunnel to deliver Sunkosi water for irrigation in Terai. There can hardly be any other substitutes for them. Under such circumstances about 4 ( four ) billion units (Kwh) of firm electric energy could be generated at a relatively small additional investment. Such generation cost of electricity could be only about one US Cent per unit. The generation of cheap power would have extremely favorable impact on Nepal's ailing industries. Such possibility has never been seriously examined either by the government or by the institutions like the FNCCI. The FNCCI is often heard raising strong voices in support of the private hydropower developers but is not heard worrying to find ways to lower the electricity tariff..

Threat to Sunkosi Project

In our country, policy makers are often completely ignorant about technical matters. It comes as no surprise that very recently the World Bank loan money was used to conduct - through a foreign consulting firm - the feasibility study of the Dudhkosi dam project. That project would have precluded a viable Kosi dam project and would have in long run significantly reduced the scope of the Sunkosi project also. After the completion of the feasibility study, even bids were called to award this project to any of the private developers. All these highly embarrassing things happened even after the 1997 Kosi Study Agreement between Nepal and India that had paved the way to come to general consensus that the Sunkosi and the Kosi dam projects are indispensable for the safety of millions of peoples in our region.

In Conclusion

The National Planning Commission should play a key role in guiding the sectoral ministries in seeking ways to exploit our water and other natural resources as far as possible to achieve rapid expansion of our own country's economy that would help to raise the living standard of common people at much faster pace. Exploitation of water resources alone should not be our goal. We have before our eyes few very glaring cases to draw lessons from. For example Bihar, just after the independence of India, was among the well off states . It was very rich in mineral resources. After a half century of widespread exploitation of its vast mineral wealth, Bihar became the poorest state of India. The states like Haryana and former East Punjab in India, and 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 region by building Bhakra, Mangla and other dams. The Sunkosi dam project mostly to serve our country can also help to improve the economic condition of our common people.

(Dr. Thapa writes on water resources)