NEPAL'S WATER AGREEMENTS WITH INDIA

UNCLAS KATHMANDU 001251 DEPT FOR OES/PCI, SCA/INS, SCA/RA BANGKOK FOR USAID PASCH USAID FOR ANE/SAA EPA FOR OIA FREEMAN E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: SENV EAID ENRG XD NP SUBJECT: NEPAL'S WATER AGREEMENTS WITH INDIA REF: A) KATHMANDU 1182 B) KATHMANDU 1054 C) KATHMANDU 997 D) KATHMANDU 963 E) KATHMANDU 833 SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. Nepal has bilateral water agreements with India that cover three of the four major trans-boundary rivers. The complex, politically charged agreements are a source of concern and resentment among Nepalis and the recent Koshi River floods have led to calls to renegotiate them. Although Nepal is the upstream water source, it feels manipulated by its much larger downstream neighbor, India, outmaneuvered by India's tough negotiating tactics, and constrained by agreements negotiated initially over 50 years ago. Nepal's new government has set an objective of creating 10,000 new megawatts of hydro-power over 10 years. It will be hard to achieve, but it sets a positive tone for developing the country's vast hydropower potential, estimated at 83,000 megawatts. WHETHER TO RENEGOTIATE -------------- ¶2. South Asia is a region of both water abundance and scarcity. The summer monsoon causes annual flooding in the Gangetic Plain, but in India where the demand is greatest per capita water consumption has dwindled by a factor of five since 1950. According to a study quoted in the June 2008 IPCC Technical Paper on Climate Change and Water, India could be on the brink of a water crisis by 2025. Demographic and climatic causes are responsible for the increasing stress on India's water resources. ¶3. By some estimates, Nepal provides India's Ganges River system with 71 percent of its dry season water from glacial melting and 41 percent of its monsoon season water. Nepal is able to capture and use only a small fraction of its water, 90 percent of which falls in just 15 days per year. Nepal's hydropower potential is estimated at 83,000 megawatts, but it exploits less than one percent of its potential. As a result, most of the country's rainwater flows into India through over 200 trans-boundary rivers and is lost to productive use in Nepal. ¶4. The conventional thinking is that future power generating facilities on Nepal's rivers will sell electricity to India's thriving economy, while providing Nepal a share of the electricity produced cost-free. However, both nations' interests are 
broader than electricity. India's primary need is for water for irrigation and flood control from dams located upstream in Nepal. Nepal also needs water for irrigation and flood control, particularly in the fertile lowland Terai. If large water storage facilities are to be built, Nepal will need to take into account social and environmental concerns. In some cases, if agricultural lands are flooded by reservoirs, entire communities may have to be relocated and alternative livelihoods provided for. ¶5. The breach in the Koshi River embankment that caused widespread and destructive flooding in southern Nepal's Sunsari District and the Indian state of Bihar has led to calls to renegotiate India and Nepal's bilateral water management agreements. Senior officials of the Ministry of Water Resources have told the Kathmandu-based Regional Environmental Officer (REO) that the current agreements are working pretty well and that corrective measures could be made under the existing agreements. But, several retired officials from the same ministry, who are now associated with non-government organizations in the water sector and can speak more freely, are convinced that the agreements are outdated and detrimental to Nepal's interests. While the ministry is weighing how to proceed, it is both timely and appropriate to review the three existing bilateral water treaties. Note: There is no bilateral agreement covering use of the fourth major river, the Karnali, which flows to India from western Nepal. KOSHI RIVER -------------- ¶6. These same former Nepali ministry officials believe that the Koshi River Agreement cedes too much authority to India over water which originates in Nepal. They contend that India has not lived up to its obligation to maintain and repair water management infrastructure, including embankments, roads, and the barrage built wholly on Nepali soil, and that Nepal's benefits from the treaty are (quote) miniscule (unquote). According to one former Water Ministry secretary, the only utility that Nepal derives from the Koshi River Barrage is use of the East-west Highway, which was washed out by the August flooding and, at one location, cut to avoid the floods spreading to nearby villages. ¶7. Under the 1954 Koshi River Agreement, India has the right to regulate the water level at the barrage, which spans the Koshi River within Nepali territory, and to generate hydropower from an associated canal. Initially, there was no provision for Nepal to use the river water, but after Nepali complaints, a 1966 amendment to the agreement specifically gave Nepal the right to withdraw water from the river for irrigation and other purposes. Under the agreement, India receives water to irrigate 960,000 hectares in Bihar, India. Most of the water comes via a 35-kilometer canal, which India built on Nepali territory. Nepal receives water to irrigate about 25,000 hectares. The agreement locks Nepal into this water distribution arrangement for 199 years. ¶8. As a result of the August 18 breach in the Koshi River embankment, the river has been diverted southward, flooding Sunsari District in Nepal and affecting 3 million people in downstream communities in the Indian State of Bihar. The breach was attributed to poor maintenance. Indian authorities, who are obligated to maintain the embankments under the bilateral treaty, have told Nepal that they will excavate a new channel through the riverbed to redirect the flow of the river back under the barrage. Indian contractors plan to complete the channel by mid-December. If successful, the new channel will allow them to build a temporary coffer dam and repair the breach before the start of the monsoon in June ¶2009. If the river is not diverted back to its original course in time, repairs to the breach will have to be put off until next year's dry season, leaving Sunsari District and Bihar State exposed to renewed monsoon flooding from the Koshi River. ¶9. An additional initiative to tame the Koshi River is a proposal for a high dam to provide flood control, irrigation, and navigation services. The two national governments signed a MOU in 1997 to study a possible Koshi River High dam, located in the mid-hills 40 kilometers upstream of the barrage in Nepal. A bilateral feasibility study of the project, begun in 2000, is still not yet complete. If the project proceeds, a future reservoir could force 75,000 Nepali citizens from their homes. GANDAK RIVER -------------- ¶10. The 1954 Gandak River Agreement also provided for the construction of a barrage - which straddles the Nepal-India border - as well as embankments and irrigation canals on both sides of the river. Under the agreement, India paid for, managed the construction, and is obligated to maintain the project infrastructure. The canals irrigate 1.8 million hectares of land in India and 48,000 hectares in Nepal. A 1964 revision of the agreement ensured Nepal's right to consumptive use of the Gandak's upstream water, which the earlier agreement had not provided. However, under the agreement Nepal does not have the right to transfer water from one basin to another within its territory without India's consent. ¶11. Local Nepali residents of the nearby District of Nawalparsi have a litany of complaints about poor maintenance of the Gandak project. They blockaded the project's western canal for 34 days during the summer of 2008 to press their demands for better canal maintenance, access bridges over the canals, protection for their farmland from erosion, and compensation for waterlogged farmland. Their complaints are currently on hold after local officials from Nepal and India promised to meet and resolve the issues. MAHAKALI RIVER -------------- ¶12. The Mahakali River Agreement has been a continual source of frustration and mistrust for both Nepal and India. The agreement was concluded in 1996 to develop the Mahakali River, but it has yet to be fully implemented. Senior Nepal Ministry of Water Resources officials say that both sides want the project, but they have not found the right balance of costs and benefits to meet their concerns. Technical experts at the Ministry of Water Resources state that only a political-level decision is lacking. ¶13. The treaty contemplates the integrated development of the Mahakali River, which forms Nepal's western border with India. It gives Nepal the right to a supply of water from the pre-existing Sarada Barrage and requires India to maintain a substantial flow of water downstream of the barrage and to preserve the river's ecosystem. The treaty also grants India the use of a few hectares of Nepali territory for an extension of the Tanakpur Barrage. In exchange, Nepal receives water for irrigation and 70 megawatts of electricity free of charge from the Tanakpur power station. ¶14. Most importantly, the agreement lays the foundation for the Pancheswar Project, a joint Indo- Nepali hydroelectric project on the Mahakali River that would benefit both countries evenly. The planned capacity for the Pancheswar hydroelectric station is approximately 5,600 megawatts, which would increase Nepal's current electricity generating capacity nine times. However, in the subsequent 12 years the joint commission that is studying the Pancheswar Project has been deadlocked over differing interpretations of the agreement and what rights each party has to the water of the Mahakhali River. The joint commission has not reported its findings to the public, but it appears that Nepal wants to share the river waters on a 50-50 basis. India, which expects to pay for most of the dam costs, wants the benefits to be shared in proportion to the costs each party bears. The agreement is ambiguous on this point. However, in a hopeful development officials from India and Nepal agreed to form a new Pancheswar Development Authority to expedite the project during a meeting of the Nepal- India Joint Committee on Water Resources in early October. RIVER LINKING -------------- ¶15. An additional source of concern to Nepalis is widespread reports of a grand plan under development in India to provide water for India's water deficit western and southern states. The plan reportedly involves the construction of an interlinking canal network in India to move water thousands of miles from high dams located on Nepali soil. According to Water Ministry officials, India has not shared this water plan with Nepal. Lack of official information has added to Nepali mistrust of India's intentions. BHUTAN MODEL -------------- ¶16. The least palatable strategy for Nepali officials is the Bhutan model. In neighboring Bhutan, India has financed through a combination of grants and soft loans, engineered, and constructed two major run-of- the-river hydropower projects that produce approximately 1,460 megawatts of electricity. The vast majority of this power is transferred directly to India at favorable prices. Receipts from this sale provide about 40 percent of Bhutan's gross domestic product. From the perspective of past and present Nepali Water Ministry officials, not only is the price Bhutan receives for the electricity too low, but also the social and environmental costs to Bhutan are unacceptably high. It receives little or no direct compensation for these costs, a situation that Nepal officials feel compelled to avoid studiously. Bhutan's terrain also lacks a lowland Terai region similar to Nepal. If Nepal were to pursue the Bhutan model, it would require irrigation and flood control on the lowland Terai section of Nepali territory and expect compensation for extending these services to India. When asked about the Bhutan model, Nepali Water Ministry officials react negatively, citing Bhutan's human rights record and specifically its expulsion of 100,000 ethnic Nepalis starting in 1990. In their view, this offence makes duplicating the Bhutan model a political dead letter. COMMENT -------------- ¶17. Although the three major Indo-Nepal water treaties remain the cause of ongoing disputes and mistrust, linking Nepal's water and hydropower potential with downstream markets remains the key to the nation's economic development. The newly empowered Maoist-led government wants to attract foreign investment in the hydropower sector. The World Bank has shown renewed interest in developing Nepal's hydropower potential. Senior Nepal government officials would like American investors to participate in major hydropower projects. American participation could reassure Nepal that it is receiving fair treatment from India while American technical expertise could provide an unbiased cost- benefit analysis of the many options for development of country's rivers. Nepal's new government leaders have repeatedly stated their objective of creating 10,000 new megawatts of hydropower through public- private partnerships in the next 10 years. This objective may be overly ambitious, but it sets the right tone for developing the country's vast potential. POWELL