Nepal's population as a whole harbours the dream of achieving wealth utilising the country's water resource. As for the political leadership, it desperately wants to make this a reality by building high dams, exporting electricity to India and thus earning millions. This desperation is evident in the words of five-time and current prime minister, Girija Prasad Koirala, "I would like to see not water but dollars flowing through the watercourses of Nepal." Or as the long-time minister of water affairs under the Panchayat regime and later, Pashupati Shumshere Rana, likes to say, "Once the Mahakali Treaty is implemented and the Pancheswar Project is built, the sun will start rising from the west." A decade ago, the Mahakali Treaty had been signed by a minority government and endorsed by an otherwise divided Parliament. The exceptional cooperative spirit exhibited by the parliamentary parties at that time has rarely surfaced before or after that treaty.
Across the border, Indian politicians are equally attracted by the prospect of exploiting and managing Nepal's rivers. Over the last two months, Nitish Kumar and Mayawati, chief ministers of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have, after visiting the areas submerged by this year's extraordinary floods, asked the Centre to seek a permanent solution to the flooding by having dams and reservoirs built in Nepal. On occasions when it is pressed thus, New Delhi's standard response has been, and was, "We are talking to Nepal". And the talks have in fact taken place for years and years, after which there have been treaties, understandings and detailed studies of proposed projects. But strangely, after five decades, not a single cooperative project of that nature has so far been implemented.
There is no escaping India when talking about utilising Nepal's water resource, but this is not so only because India is a lower-riparian country with interest in any upstream project. Indeed, the very foundation of Nepal's water resource planning, its estimates, projections and exploitation strategies, are built on India's market, its interests and priorities, as well as its financial and technical capabilities. The fact that those rivers which are best suited to India's flood control, irrigation and energy needs were the first to be studied proves the tie that binds Nepal's water resource to the Indian political economy. A joint Indo-Nepal team of experts has for the last four years been engaged in a field study of the proposed Kosi High Dam, which was first mooted before India achieved independence in 1947. The study report of the 10,000 megawatt Karnali-Chisapani project is gathering dust these past two decades. Similarly, a decade has passed since the study of the Mahakali-Pancheswar Multipurpose Project was complete and the Mahakali Treaty signed.
For all these detailed studies of India-oriented projects, there has been no methodical attempt to study the electricity, irrigation and other water needs to support the Nepali population on a daily basis. Indeed, Nepali consumers have no hope of directly benefiting from the projects that are the most talked about, whereas the rivers that they hope to utilise for their own benefit have been little studied. This neglect also applies to the Indian populations in the border region, for the scores of rivers which traverse the open frontier from Nepal to India are similarly neglected by both governments. Citizens who could benefit from, or alternatively are harmed by these small water courses, find their interests sidelined in the overwhelming focus on mega-projects for the larger Indian market.