Cheap hydroelectric power in the Himalayan region will not be forthcoming in the near future, going by the proceedings OF a seminar hold recently in Nepal.
INEXPENSIVE and plentiful
Himalayan hydroelectric power
remains a dream, with Nepal's total
installed capacity standing at only
250 MW. Most Nepalese lack electricity and those linked to the grid
suffer periodic power cuts. However,
judging by a recent seminar in
Kathmandu on Cooperative Development of Himalayan Water
Resources, turning the dream into
reality looks harder than envisaged.
Some speakers blamed India for
the slow pace of water development
and a discussion of fiiture flows witnessed proponents of a high-tech,
dash-for-growth policy clashing with
those favouring a bottom-up, capacity-building approach. There was
widespread agreement, however, on
the need for a more open attitude to
scientific information and this was
recommended at three of the four
working sessions.
Many participants, particularly
those from Nepal, said a more genuinely cooperative approach on
India's part would speed up the harnessing of hydroelectric power.
The strongest criticism of India
came from Bhini Subba, former director general of Bhutan's department of
power. He urged India to stop treating projects in Nepal and Bhutan as
if they were being planned as routine
additions to India's own utilities and
called for an end to development on
a project-by-project basis.
However, Kamala Prasad, distinguished visiting fellow at the
Institute of Rural Management in
Anand, Gujarat, strongly defended
the success of India's bilateral negotiations. He said a project-by-project
approach had yielded good dividends. As India needed large quantities of water and was prepared to pay
for it, Prasad added, it sought a technological, rather than political,
approach. Prasad urged this should
be need-based water-sharing, instead
of "sterile insistence on water
rights".
Rajendra D Joshi of the Institute
of Engineering in Nepal called for
rapid cooperative development of
resources in the region so as to
enable Nepal to achieve an estimated
potential of 83,000 MW a year, mainly for export to India, Bangladesh
and Pakistan between 2010 and
2055. On the other hand, Bikash
Pandey, programme manager of the
Intermediate Technology Group in
Nepal, proposed a trickle-up
approach.
Joshi envisaged Pakistan would
find power supplied by Nepal attractive after 2010, whereas hydroelectric power would be critical for India
after about 2020 - when India's fossil fuels would probably be exhausted - and for Bangladesh, by 2035.
Pandey was more concerned with
building up capacity in Nepal itself,
preferably by small private projects.
"If the option of developing hydroelectric power through local industry is lost," he commented, "it condemns urban Nepalese to escalating
electricity prices and periodic power
s4ortages on the grid, and will deny
ipral Nepalese access to electric
p1pwer forever."
Pandey's analysis indicated that
energy from large government
schemes was 50 per cent more
expensive than small (1,001-15,000
'KW), mini (101-1,000 KW) and micro
(94.5-100 KW) schemes. Instead, he
argued, power generation should be
decentralised and handed over to the
private sector, and local industry
should be involved in hydroelectric
power development.
- With further investment, he estimated, the local hydro industry
could grow at 15 per cent a year,
doubling capacity within five years.
Investments in electro-mechanical
equipment, associated industries and
humanpower would be of an
unprecedented magnitude and
Pandey warned only such investment
could enable Nepal to build the big
hydroelectric plants that would be
needed in the next century.
Asked why both his and Joshi's
approaches could not be adopted,
Pandey replied that if Nepal went
ahead with the planned Arun 111
hydroelectric project at a cost of
US $760 million, the government
would not be interested in developing micro-hydroelectric capability.
Also warning against the
hightech route to water resources development was Rishi Shah, member secretary of the Royal Nepal Academy of
Science and Technology (RONAST).
"Mega-projects are in trouble around
the world," he commented, "Yet we
fall into the trap of believing that big
is beautiful." And, added International Rivers Network president
Phil Williams, "Big dams are really
hydro-technical experiments. It will
take decades'to understand the
results."
Dipak Gyawali of the Royal Nepal
Academy of Science and Technology
and Othmar Schwank from a Swiss
organisation, INFRAS, in a joint
paper,ascribed the continuing conflict between Nepal and India to scientific uncertainties.
Comparing a Swiss-German project with the Indo-Nepali Tanakpur
barrage, they argue that a good
database would have had an impact
on the choice of technology and
would probably have dictated 1hat
the barrage be situated several
kilometres upstream from the
chosen site.
Says Gyawali, "This poor state of
science has meant that science does
not lead decision-making but events
lead to scientific evaluation-after the
fact, a sure recipe for having a perpetually disgruntled neighbour to
live with."
"Good science is also good
management science," says the paper.
"The Swiss-German example provides for a German commissioner to
sit on the management committee of
the Swiss plant to ensure a proper
functioning of the power station and
correct allocation of the mutually
agreed benefits. The broad, state-level Tanakpur agreement has not yet
come to addressing these operational
issues."
Marcus Moench of the US Pacific
Institute said his research into
groundwater in India showed figures
with little scientific certainty had
been used to capture funds. "Ready
availability of accurate, information is
an important prerequisite for the
emergence of management systems,"
he commented.
Pleas for recognition of the
importance of accessible, sound data
were not confined to hydrology and
geology. Environmental and social
factors have too often been undervalued in project assessment, several
speakers said. As Jayanta Bandyopadhyay, a leading Himalayan ecologist, put it: "Sophisticated mathematics on power projects are, not
balanced by sophisticated social
engineering."
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