The debate swirling around the Arun III project has been the first controversy about a major development project in Nepal. The democratic changes of 1990 allowed the public to speak up on matters on which they had remained silent for decades, and this dam project planned for the Arun Kosi river in east Nepal provided the first opportunity for those who were concerned enough to question the mistaken developmental path that had led to a project such as this.
Since 1987, this one project has become synonymous with hydro-power development in Nepal, as the government and donor agencies seemingly want to consider nothing else. Conceptualised as a 402 megawatt project at the outset, for a site known as Arun III (third of the six sites initially identified in the Arun Valley), the Nepali Government de-cided in 1992 to proceed with the first half of Arun III, to provide 201MW of power. The final decision on funding this oversized "Baby Arun" has yet to be taken by the donors.
Internationally, the Arun opposition distinguishes itself by being a dam protest with a difference: clear alternatives have been presented that no one has been able to dismiss. In f ac t, the Arun controversy is not ab out opposing dams as much as it is about ho w forei gn aid defines development priorities of aid-dependent countries like Nepal. It is about the condition-alities countries like Nepal must sub-mit to in order to receive aid, and about how these conditions can in¬hibit real development of the country. The criteria being used by its critics to assess Arun will in future be used for other areas of development and foreign aid-giving in Nepal. In this sense, some new ground has been broken by the opposition.
Constitutional Guarantee
The first public attempt to question the Arun project was at a hearing organised in February 1993 at Hotel Kathmandu by the Nepal Forum of Environmental Journalists (NEFEJ) and ten other organisations. "In keeping with the healthy democratic atmosphere prevailing in Nepal, the promises of the Constitution both on the right to development and the right to information, as well as the excep¬tional dimensions of Arun III itself, it is appropriate that the project be discussed and debated openly with relevant information at hand," stated the organisers of the public hearing.