Multpurpose West Seti Project

April 7, 2012

Mr Narayan Prasad Silwal
Former Secretary, GoN

Subject: RE: West Seti project in Nepal's interest
Dear Narayan
I played an important role to ensure that the parliamentary committee “directed” GoN to develop West Seti as a multipurpose project which will enable Nepal to irrigate over 250,000 hectares of land in Nepal during dry season. There is no question of feasibility of Nepal reaping irrigation benefit. CTGI will build the project including the dam in which enough water will be stored which will be released around at 90 cubic meter per second.
It not only is feasible to irrigate across the border but the idea is to first use to water to saturate water need of the region. however, people across the border will not be able to do so without sharing the cost of negative externalities like submergence and involuntary displacement. If India agrees to pay at the rate South Africa to Lesotho, it could be positively considered.
There seems to be rampant misconception about transmission network. Like building highways, Nepal also needs transmission to have energy flow around the country. But the priority should be to use as much as possible electricity in the region itself and “export” the electricity only in the quantum that the region isn’t able to consume. The transmission network will come in handy to evacuate power from other projects towards east, like Upper Karnali.

US 4.95 ¢ is the benchmark tariff and we should stick to it.

Nepal best benefits by using this project as a multipurpose project. same applies to all hydropower projects with reservoir, like Naumure, Nausyalgarh, etc.


With best regards,


Sincerely,



Ratna Sansar Shrestha, FCA
Senior Water Resource Analyst
http://www.ratnasansar.com/



From: Narayan Prasad Silwal [mailto:npsilwal@hotmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, April 1, 2012 18:30
To: rsansar@mos.com.np
Subject: RE: West Seti project in Nepal's interest



Hi there,

I understand that West Seti developer is now being asked by parliamentary committee to develop it as a Multipurpose project . In addition, 500KM of 440 Volts transmission line needs to be constructed to feed electricity into the central grid. Is the irrigation benefit to Nepal is a feasible option? Previously, how come SMEC had offered Rs.4 /KWH tariff to India when there was no cross country high voltage transmission line? Will it be a feasible proposition to irrigate across the border too? In that case will 4Rs./ kwh tariff still remain a benchmark price or it needs to go up? Revised DPR will certainly throw light on this. Have you got any idea how the country can benefit from this project the most- multipurpose or electricity alone?

ns

________________________________________

From: rsansar@mos.com.np
To: rsansar@mos.com.np
Subject: FW: West Seti project in Nepal's interest
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2012 19:07:32 +0545

Dear Colleague