Saturday, March 31, 2012

RE: West Seti project in Nepal's interest

March 31, 2012
Kishore Nepal
Kathmandu

Kishore jee

Good to hear from you and I am happy to clarify things for you. I have written a number of articles on Upper Karnali, which I have uploaded in my website; these will answer a number of questions in your mind. You can access those by clicking the links below:
http://www.ratnasansar.com/2011/07/blog-post.html
http://www.ratnasansar.com/2011/06/blog-post_16.html

Briefly, Upper Karnali site is an incomparable gift of Mother Nature to Nepali people but it is going to be squandered and, therefore, this incarnation needs to be restructured such that it doesn’t fall prey to colonial model of resource exploitation. If GMR is to emulate Three Gorges and implement upper Karnali such that it serves our national interest then GMR is very welcome. Otherwise, I don’t expect GMR to be implementing this project. I am working at every possible level to ensure that this project too is built to serve our national interest. For example I am making a presentation at Rashtriya Sabha Griha (City Hall) on Tuesday. You are also welcome (time: 2pm to 4pm). I am also fighting a case at Supreme Court.

Investors are investors, no matter where they hail from. We shouldn’t have predilection against any investors as long as each particular investor involves itself in a project in the manner that serves our national interest. Therefore, it isn’t the case of Three Gorges being better than GMR or any other investor. If Upper Karnali is to emulate West Seti and implement in Nepal’s national interest, then GMR is more than welcome to implement it.

No investor serves national interest, neither their own, nor ours. The only interest that an investor serves is that of their investment: which is return on investment or “profit.” Meaning: even Nepali investors don’t serve Nepal’s national interest primarily. It is dharma of a businessman to work for profit and only profit. Mainly they work to profit from their investment (or even without making any investment) and only secondarily, or rather incidentally, their investment may serve Nepal’s interested. This point is best illustrated by Nepali investors being involved in VAT robbery, smuggling, bank scam, “sick industry business”, et al. Independent people like you and me have to ensure that an investment does not only benefit the investors in terms of generating profit but also to Nepal’s economy and Nepali people.

Your questions on our national interest, national target and national vision are very “loaded” and will be difficult to answer them such that the answers don’t transcend the span of attention of an individual. Specifically our national interest with regard to hydropower lies in using it not only for electrification (lighting) in Nepal but for industrialization to generate employment as well as to displace fossil fuel by maximizing use of electricity in the transport sector (all these together will help our country prosper by eliminating balance of trade and balance of payment deficit). Our national interest will not be served by exporting power in current condition when country is suffering from electricity “famine”. Nor will our national be served by exporting power at rock bottom price; less than Rs 2/unit while we import from India at close to Rs 11/unit.

Our national interest will be served if Nepal is to buy all electricity generated in Nepal by, for example, GMR from any project, use it in Nepal to saturation level and GoN exports remaining electricity at the rate India exports to us.

I am always speaking without my personal interest clouding my vision. If you were to study my writings, it shouldn’t be that difficult for an intelligent person like you to discern that I don’t fear anyone, I have no dread of nobody and I call a spade spade without being afraid whatsoever.

Koshi, Gandaki and Mahakali treaties were blunders. Previous incarnation of West Seti wouldn’t have served our national interest and therefore, I had to fight against it tooth and nail. I didn’t limit my fight against it by merely writing articles. I fought against it in Supreme Court. I worked hard to have ADB withdraw its investment (ADB was not only going to provide debt funding, but also investing in equity and also giving loan to GoN to invest in equity). Due to the efforts of people like me, West Seti is now going to be implemented by Three Gorges in our national interest. We gave ample opportunity to SMEC to re-tailor the project such that the project was built to serve our national interest for example the electricity be made available to meet Nepal’s need. They failed to heed to us and they got “ousted” from the project itself. However, I don’t have and didn’t have anything against SMEC. Now West Seti project is going to be built to serve our national interest and I wholeheartedly support it without worrying about angering anyone.
I am in opposition of Arun III too and I am fighting litigation in Supreme Court.

With best regards,

Sincerely,



Ratna Sansar Shrestha, FCA
Senior Water Resource Analyst
http://www.ratnasansar.com/
From: kishore.nepal@gmail.com [mailto:kishore.nepal@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, March 30, 2012 21:58
To: Ratna Sansar Shrestha
Subject: Re: West Seti project in Nepal's interest

Dear Sir,

May I know your opinion on Upper Karnali? Is there any difference between Chinese and Indian MNC? Why Three Gorge is better and GMR not better? Don't you think both the country serve their own national interest?

Can you explain our own National interest? What is our national target? What is our national vision?

Why the learned people like yourself shed your own personal interest and speak out independently? Why you are afraid of surrounding? Could you pls explain the national mind set of our so called rulers?

Seti or Karnali, Koshi or Roshi. Seti or Kali- has been mired by petti political interest. Our leaders are poor on national mathematics and bargaining for the benefit of the nation. In the situation blaming others for our own stupidity is a shameless act.

Don't you agree?

Thanks.

Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone from Ncell

________________________________________

From: "Ratna Sansar Shrestha"
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2012 19:06:59 +0545
To: Ratna Sansar Shresthamailto:Shrestharsansar@mos.com.np
Subject: FW: West Seti project in Nepal's interest
Dear Colleague
Following GoN decision to have West Seti project implemented by China Three Gorges International, this project is going to be implemented in the interest of Nepal and people of Nepal. I have written an article on the subject which was published by Gorkhapatra yesterday.

1 comment:

Kiran Shrestha said...

Dear Kishor Dai,

I am a regular reader of your articles in various news media. Today I came to know about Mr Ratnasansar's blog site and reading them (I used to read his available articles published in newspapers.
I appreciate his views and the broader aspect of hydropower generation and export related matters though i have some reserves on his views as well (just my personalopinion).

When I read your comments, I remained stunned that you are using a bit more angerness that any fruitful feedback or comments on this article. Though your questions are valid but still it seems way rude to read.