National 1 (Spotlight Weekly)

Path Of Progress

India agrees to consider Nepal’s problems while constructing dams and dykes along the border

By A CORRESPONDENT

The two separate meeting of the High Level Technical Committee and the Standing Committee on Inundation Problem (SCIP) held in Kathmandu last week has come up with concrete decisions to address the persisting problem of inundation on Nepalese villages along the border thanks to dams and dykes built by India in its territory.

“The major achievement of the meeting is that the Indian side agreed to take Nepal into confidence when constructing infrastructures along the border and that they agreed to maintain status quo and suspend any more construction of dykes,” said an official at the Ministry of Water Resources.

A dam : Mutual issue

The issue of inundation has been haunting Nepal come every monsoon. Following the recent visit to India by Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, the two sides had agreed to instruct concerned officials to resolve this problem.

As a result, the meeting of the SCIP and the HLTC took place subsequently. The SCIP meeting concluded on October 2 with India agreeing to suspend the construction on dams and barrages it has erected along the border in Mahalisagar and Koilabas area.

The committee – a body of top officials of Nepal and India - also agreed, in principle, to seek the pre-approval of each other while constructing dams and dykes along the border area.

After the meeting, Shital Babu Regmi, director of the Water Induced Disaster Control Division, said, “India has agreed not to move ahead with the construction of Mahalisagar and Koilabas dam.” Nepal had strongly protested the construction of such dams along the border, which it said had inundated large swathes of Nepalese territory. C. B. Vasistha, leader of the Indian delegation and the chairman of the Ganga Flood Control Commission asserted that Mahalisagar was an old structure.

He, however, said that the two countries have agreed to maintain status quo on the building of dam structures along the border for the time being. The next meeting of the SCIP is scheduled to be held in Patna, India in April next year.

Meanwhile, after the meeting of the HLPC, on September 29, India agreed to let the water flow through the Laxmanpur barrage by building sluice gate to prevent it from inundating the bordering Nepalese villages. Nepal has been contesting that the Laxmanpur barrage, which is located 300 m from the Indo-Nepal border, has been inundating around 9 VDCs on Nepal’s side for the past couple of years.

As per the agreement signed by the officials from two sides the HLTC has formed a joint task force, which will recommend what amount of water, and in which season, to be allowed to flow through the barrage in order to prevent the inundation.

The task force, which will include technicians from both the countries will make the recommendations to this regard within November this year. Nepal had proposed to allow the natural passage of the Gandhaliya and Sotiya streams. India, on the other hand, agreed to the proposal for allowing the passage of water through ‘appropriate opening.’ However, similar agreement could not be reached regarding the Rasiyawal Khurda Lotan barrage in Kapilvastu district.

Uma Kanta Jha, executive director of the Water and Energy Commission, and M.L. Goyal, commissioner of the Ministry of Water Resources, signed the understanding on the concluding day of the meeting of the HLTC.

Nepal and India share 1700 km long and open border. Besides, most of the rivers passing through and originating from Nepal enter India. Consequently, the two countries have several outstanding problems regarding water resources. The last week’s Kathmandu meeting, however, showed that these issues can be resolved amicably if both sides are willing to pursue it honestly.