Sharad Chandra Pyakurel EMBA Fall 2012 Article 1

Hydro- Nepalese dream, fact and possibility

When we look at the budget plan of every government, energy comes under top three development priorities along with agriculture and education. When the issue comes to energy, Hydro and electricity is the most frequently sing rhyme in Nepalese society; it is the most shown dream of Nepalese people. Any political parties which come to the government they have common rhyme regarding the hydro and hydropower and perhaps it is the most discussed and researched subject in Nepal. Even having the primary focused subject from government and other sectors, its development is very slow. The topographical structure and water runoff of the country have made Nepal rich in hydropower with 83000MW theoretical potential and about 43000MW financially and technically viable. However, even with the enormous potential and a century long history of hydropower development , only about 730MW is harnessed till now but the present demand of the electricity in Nepal has crossed 1000MW. The only reliable alternative to meet the demand of energy in Nepal is construction of new hydropower projects and proper maintenance of the existing hydropower plants. The Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) is imposing load shedding five hours daily even during the peak monsoon and this is supposed to go up to twenty hours daily in the dry season. This continuous load shedding has direct impact on industrial, social and economic sectors of the country. Nepal is expending billions money for importing energy substitutes like generators, invertors, batteries, emergency lights and UPS every year. If we would put this expense for the generation of hydropower it would be generated more excess electricity than the present demand of the country and by default we would not have to suffer from the load shedding. Nepal is successful to enter billions of amounts through remittance and it is the major support of Nepalese economy. But one question arises, where does this huge money goes? This money goes again out of the country for the consumption of low quality Chinese and Indian products because Nepal is manufacturing nothing. Manufacturing of new product is very far for us, we are shutting down our existing industries due to lack of energy as well as various political and social issues. Politics is a part of our society. Our society is heavily affected by our political environment because each political individual are individuals from the society. Our social system is not been still matured, it is still in the process of change but the pace of change is very slow and directionless since we have different kind of value system. Our self focused value system is stopping our country from

Sharad Chandra Pyakurel EMBA Fall 2012 Article 1

the development of infrastructures like hydro plants because we cannot overcome from our personal interest. Our society has been corrupted; we let someone to be corrupt to fulfill our own self interest. We people have been blind and dumb; we cannot see and hear our surroundings. We have no electricity, no roads and those which existing are poorly damaged, suffering from frequent strikes but we are satisfied with our misery. We are blowing towards the direction where political groups say, we are still not being able to take self decision. Although we have tremendous potential to produce hydro electricity in Nepal we are not being able to utilize even very small fraction of source of our own potential. No one wants to take responsibility for its development; we are following our resistance culture in every development sectors. Some hardly starting projects are also being stopped. Some projects fail because of opposition by some political parties or groups and some due to resistance of local people by forwarding nonsense and unviable demands. For producing one megawatt hydro electricity it costs nearly 200 million rupees. If we cover all major financial sectors within Nepal it can contribute to produce only 20 to 30 megawatt electricity but Nepalese investors are not ready to finance for it because they are very uncertain regarding their return on investment and moreover, one or two banks are not capable to finance. Actually Nepal is not capable to support hydropower development financially. We are heavily dependent upon donor agencies for major funding. Donor agencies or countries has their own self interests, they are ready to invest for those projects only from where they will be heavily benefited. Even when the project is operated through the grant, Nepal is unable to achieve benefit from the project because we have to import all necessary materials for the project including turbines, generators, etc. In addition they force to sign on massive agreements which resists Nepal from obtaining optimum benefit from the project and they will be heavily benefited. Indeed it is very difficult to generate sufficient electricity for Nepal due to lack of financial support, but it is not that much difficult if we strategically participated together. The first and primary requirement is that the government should be stable at least for ten years so that it could plan long term projects and perform activities accordingly. There should be mutual trust and support among various political powers so that it could have common vision of the project and other development activities. Local people also should support the project from their side; they

Sharad Chandra Pyakurel EMBA Fall 2012 Article 1

should not put unnecessary demands. Private sector should be participated and the government should promote equal participation of private sectors for its development. It would be more effective if government makes participation of general citizen for its financing and other supports. Nepalese people has lots of investable money, if they are encouraged to invest some part of their income at least equivalent to cost of purchasing inventers, generators, batteries or other imported energy supplements. We people should aware of the fact that no one external will develop for us, we have to develop our society our self. We have to solve our problems ourselves; we should not expect foreigner to fulfill or deficiencies. If we have problem we are responsible for its solution then only it would be long term solution. If we people united and be together for development of social issues and countries infrastructure it does not take long time, ultimately we will be developing for our self. The only thing we need is discipline and determination. Hydro does not only refers to hydro power, if covers every things related to water like drinking water, irrigation, transportation, tourism opportunity like rafting, etc. If we be able to utilize our water resources affectively, development of our country is not too far and difficult, for this an important requirement is common vision, initiation and stability. Relative to other hydro sector Nepal is very weak in energy sector which is the primary requirement of other infrastructure development. Without energy other infrastructure is also impossible to develop. So our primary focus should be in development of hydropower and associated infrastructure which is the only alternative for fulfilling the demand of energy in Nepal.

References: Conca, Ken. 2006. Governing Water: Contentious Transnational Politics and Global Institution Building. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
http://www.karobardaily.com/news/2013/07/sensitivity-of-hydropower-projects