NEW DELHI, JUN 25 - India has proposed suspending the Joint Project Office (JPO) assigned to conduct a feasibility study for the Sapta Koshi High Dam Multipurpose Project and the Sun Koshi storage-cum-diversion scheme. The JPO was set up in 2004 and is based in Biratnagar.
India’s plan to shut it down temporarily has come amid obstructions from local groups preventing it from doing its job. Last week, officials of the Joint Technical Team from the two countries met in the Indian capital New Delhi to discuss the hindrances faced during the feasibility study.
“It has been so many years since we set up the office, but even the feasibility study has not been completed. If work cannot go ahead, what is the meaning of paying for the costs of the office and the officials posted there?” said a source quoting Indian officials. There are currently 40 officials working at the JPO, 30 from India and the rest from Nepal.
Meanwhile, Nepali officials have told their Indian counterparts that the hindrances should be sorted out at the political level.
“Local NGOs and the concerned groups at the prospective project site have a lot of demands, and we can observe some anti-dam lobbyists behind this,” said Dilli Bahadur Singh, director general of the Department of Electricity Development who headed the Nepali team at the meeting.
“The problems at the project site seem to be of a political nature. We need a political move, but we don’t have an energy minister now, and the prime minister who is looking after this ministry is out of the country,” Singh added.
According to Singh, a geological study has not been done while hydrological and seismological studies have been completed. “Local people obstructed the work of drilling, and the geological study could not go ahead,” Singh said.
Though the Joint Technical Team meets regularly every six months, the officials held their meeting two months ahead of schedule following obstructions to the geological study. The last meeting was held in Kathmandu in February where the officials agreed to carry out the joint feasibility study by the end of 2013.
The Joint Ministerial Commission on Water Resources (JMCWR) held last year in New Delhi had directed that a Detailed Project Report be prepared by February 2013. “It is not possible to meet the deadline as we have a lot of work to do. The environmental study,
which is yet to be started, takes two and a half to three years to complete,” said Singh.
Source: http://www.ekantipur.com/2012/06/25/business/india-proposes-suspending-koshi-dam-project-office/356132/
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