Gopal Siwakoti 'Chintan'

Oblivious to the destruction of livelihoods and habitats, a discredited hydroelectric project that was discarded 15 years ago has been revived in Nepal. Advocate and human rights activist Gopal Siwakoti 'Chintan' discusses in this column the issues kicked off by the reincarnated Arun-III project

Nepal has huge water endowments. Yet, it needs to maintain them and preserve its rich biodiversity and complex ecosystem. This is also important for meeting the drinking water and energy needs of its people. Once used carefully in a sustainable manner, this water can also be used for hydropower generation and irrigation as per its domestic requirement. Trans-boundary rivers, such as the Koshi, Gandaki, Karnali, Mahakali and others that flow through Nepal and India, should first be conserved to maintain their essential hydro-ecological character and only within this framework of preservation can they be explored for shared development benefits and prosperity on equal terms and conditions between the countries concerned. The environmental criterion should be the sacrosanct principle to which all other considerations must be subordinated.

In relation to trans-boundary water courses, to the extent that any developmental interventions are envisaged on them, small upstream nation-states such as Nepal, with weak domestic capital formation and lesser necessity to indiscriminately exploit natural resources to fuel production and consumption, should be cautious in inviting foreign capital and technology purely for satisfying the insatiable appetite of other countries. This is as much an issue of the national sovereignty of an independent country like Nepal as it is about protecting that part of nature that is under the trusteeship of the Nepali people.

The principle of national sovereignty requires that foreign participation is the choice of last resort, to be opted for only if it is the case that the proposed project is absolutely essential for Nepal, that it will benefit Nepal, and that Nepal does not have the technical and financial capacity to execute such a project independently. The principle of national trusteeship of natural endowments requires that the principle of national sovereignty is absolute and this sovereignty is exercised in the interest of protecting that endowment.

Unfortunately, the proprietors of the Nepali State, the ideologues of global developmentalism in multi-lateral financial institutions, their intellectual clients together with the subservient capitalists of Nepal, the drive of Indian capital to find avenues for investment, the quest of western countries to offload infrastructure technology, and the desire of the Indian state to dominate Nepal through every available means, have combined to assert a paradigm of hydropower development of Nepal's rivers that threatens to destroy the country's economic potential and environment by placing it as an exploitable resource at the disposal of state-patronised market forces. In the process, Nepal's already weak sovereignty has been further compromised.

In the name of economic/trade liberalisation and foreign direct investment, Nepal's rivers are being sold out to Indian or other foreign interests. There have been no consultations with the local people who have maintained and conserved these resources vibrantly for generations and the public who are keen to participate and contribute in the development debate in the era of a changing democratic Nepal.

The most recent instance of this is Nepal's controversial Arun-III Hydroelectric Project situated in the eastern district of Sankhuwasabha on the Arun river that originates in the Tibetan region of China. This project was first proposed in the early 1980s. Drawing inspiration from the Narmada Bachao Andolan in India against the World Bank-funded Sardar Sarovar Project at that time, a large number of Nepali activists and experts, including those from Arun Valley itself, successfully launched massive campaigns in 1993 against the World Bank, challenging the project's viability mostly on economic and social grounds.

Damage to the environment was an issue but it was not the primary focus. Economic factors, in fact, dominated the debate then. The lending conditionalities imposed by the World Bank as the project's chief financier were so severe that Nepal, which had by the 1990s entered the phase of multi-party politics, would have been reduced to a colony with no power to decide its annual budget, compelled to introduce massive cuts in social sector spending, forced to increase electricity tariffs up to 300 percent or more, and seek approval from the Bank for building hydro projects beyond 10 megawatt capacity, and so on.

However, there were procedural grounds also on which the project was opposed. Though it is located in the lowest valley on earth sustaining very rich biodiversity, no proper environmental impact assessment was conducted, no mitigation plans were in place, very little cash compensation was envisaged for traditional farmers who could disappear from the scene after sometime, no protection and care of the large indigenous and ethnic communities and their culture was ensured, no employment guaranteed for the locals and all work was to be done by foreign companies while Nepali engineers and experts were ignored. In short, Arun-III was going to produce arguably the most expensive electricity in the world at a monumental human and natural cost and was to be foisted on predominantly urban consumers.

Since this was called development it was ostensibly beyond criticism on both empirical and conceptual grounds. Nevertheless, undaunted by the powerful cartel of interests supporting the project, opponents of the project challenged it in the Supreme Court of Nepal. In response the Bank established an independent Inspection Panel and the campaign against project won on all fronts, from right to information and accepting the validity of societal concerns. As a result of massive national and international pressure, the World Bank withdrew from Arun-III in August 1995. This was then a major global victory for all those who were opposing the World Bank and corporate-led dams and other infrastructure projects around the world.

Arun-III dropped off the radar, though there were periodic but abortive attempts by the Asian Development Bank and the now bankrupt Enron Corporation of the US to revive it. It suddenly surfaced without warning when the seven party interim coalition government, with no popular mandate, handed it over to the notorious Indian company, Sutlaj Jal Vidyut Nigam recently. As per the terms of the agreement, Sutlaj will provide Nepal free 21.9 percent of the 402 megawatts of electricity to be generated from the project and export the rest to India. What is important to note is whether and how this company with a very poor record of dam-building in India will comply with all the concerns that were voiced when Arun-III was first proposed. The project has passed from the hands of the World Bank to Sutlaj, but for the rest there is no difference between Arun 3-I and Arun 3-II.

Therefore, the issues to be raised in the current campaign against the project will be no different from the ones raised originally, with the additional point that the government that has taken the decision now is not constitutionally empowered to do so, since it is only an interim government that cannot commit a properly elected government to this decision. In this mysterious and surreptitious deal, the government of Nepal is the main culprit. The project has been negotiated with Sutlaj in-camera. No laws of the country were followed and the agreement relies only on some arbitrary provisions prepared by an ad hoc working group constituted by the interim government. To cap it all there was not even the eyewash of a nominal tendering process!

The project agreement is constitutionally flawed on one very serious substantive ground. The project agreement has been signed without making any provision for its approval by the current Parliament as provided under Article 156 of the Interim Constitution. Nepal's most active public interest campaign group, Water and Energy Users' Federation (WAFED, www.wafed-nepal.org) is leading the campaign now for the cancellation of this deal until all the above concerns are immediately addressed, reforms made and the rights and interests of the local indigenous/ethnic communities and general public are guaranteed. As the government has already declined to furnish the necessary information regarding the project in gross violation of the provisions of the newly enacted Right to Information Act, 2007, WAFED is now preparing to move the Supreme Court of Nepal demanding a court order for the submission of the project agreement for approval or disapproval by Parliament before any part of the contract is implemented.

As part of the future campaign plan, a group of Nepali and Indian activists made a long tour all over India recently, met with groups and movements from Kerala, the Narmada Valley and Delhi who are campaigning against large dams and special economic zones. The activists are jointly preparing for a massive campaign against Sutlej as well as the reincarnated Arun-III project this time soon as the problems in both the countries with regard to such projects are basically similar.

There have been ill-informed arguments among a section of the Nepali intelligentsia that the campaign against Arun-III in the 1990s has paved the way for the project to be handed over to India. For those who are against the projects on substantial grounds it matters little whether the project is implemented by the World Bank, or an Indian company or a Nepali company. What matters are the core issues that were raised at that point, relating to the economic feasibility, compensation/ rehabilitation and serious environmental damage that will be caused by the project.

Be it in India or any other country of South Asia, in the name of economic development and growth, people and the environment are being destroyed indiscriminately to pander to the profits and lifestyles of the affluent. The time has now come for all South Asians with conscience, independent of nationality, to come together on joint platforms to protect the vulnerable people and eco-systems of the region. A river is not an exhaustible resource and the people are not perpetual playthings.

Source:http://www.combatlaw.org/information.php?article _id=1124&issue_id=39