"Thank god! You have become positive at last”

April 11, 2012

Ratna Raj Bajracharya

Kathmandu

Ratna Raj jee

It isn’t that difficult for me to understand that you wouldn’t be expecting a longish response for a brief statement of yours like “Thank god! You have become positive at last”. But that statement deserved a little more of my time, notwithstanding the fact that I was pressed for time. That statement of yours was very pregnant one. Almost as if you were relived that I have “turned” positive, finally, and it came to you as a surprise. I am always positive if a project is built in Nepal’s interest and I will continue to be “negative” if a project is not built to serve Nepal’s interest. GoN’s deploying army and authorizing them to shoot people opposing hydropower projects has not deterred me. I have challenged them to shoot me before building a project that isn’t in Nepal’s interest.

Your rejoinder below also requires a few words from me:

• Water flowing in the rivers “naturally” isn't “loss of our own resources”. The water flows as a part of hydrological cycle and it has been flowing not for many years, decades, centuries, millenniums but ages which is no loss at all. Building wrong projects in haste will result in loss and it would perpetuate colonial exploitation of our natural resources. It is better not to build a wrong project, simply because we will have opportunity to build a “right” project if nothing is built.
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• Your statement that “we are not only facing power shortage to households, but the entire industrial and infrastructural developmental works are taken aback, (iv) owing to this power storage, Nepal has to caugh off billions annually (how many, you better know) towards import of diesel and inverters” (you have assessed extant phenomena correctly) and your advocacy of “exporting entire power” is self contradictory. We shouldn’t be exporting power as long as we are “facing power shortage to households, but the entire industrial and infrastructural developmental works are taken aback, (iv) owing to this power storage, Nepal has to caugh off billions annually (how many, you better know) towards import of diesel and inverters”, to borrow your own words. We should think of exporting power only after saturating power need of Nepal, not even one kilowatt-hour before.

• You seem to subscribe to the idea that whoever invests in a power project is entitled to take electricity to his/her country. You have cited example of “BHOTOKOSHI” in which Americans invested, but they didn’t take power to US, neither Norwegians did from Khimti. Therefore, investment is welcome and export too is okay after meeting Nepal’s needs fully. Not before.

• You have stressed that we will own the project after 30 years. It is like a groom having to give his wife away to the lender for 30 years (for the duration of debt service period) for having borrowed money to solemnize wedding (I have drawn this analogy because as a banker you will be able to understand it better). The lender should be interested in interest on the loan and repayment of principal and an investor should only be interested in return on investment.

• I am not against export of power per se. But exporting power from projects built in Nepal at around Rs 2 and Nepal importing at around Rs 10 to mitigate our energy crisis is downright stupid. Nepal should purchase power from projects built in Nepal and export at competitive rate after meeting Nepal’s own needs (which you have very well listed) to saturation level.

Please be assured that you haven’t offended me. On the contrary I am pleased that you have joined the discourse and I welcome opportunities as such to deconstruct myths about hydropower/water resources.

With best regards,


Sincerely,

Ratna Sansar Shrestha, fca
Senior Water Resource Analyst

www.RatnaSansar.com

From: Ratna Raj Bajracharya [mailto:ratna_bajracharya@yahoo.co.in]
Sent: Friday, April 6, 2012 13:56
To: Ratna Sansar Shrestha
Subject: RE: FW: West Seti getting dragged into controversy unnecessarily

Dear Ratna Sansar ji, I was not really expecting such a lengthy reaction over my small comment. The fact is, as I understand, that (i) power projects are builts on BOOT basis for 30 (?) years, (ii) our delay in developing the project would not result in storing the flowing water, hence any delay is loss of our own resources, (iii) we are not only facing power shortage to households, but the entire industrial and infrastructural developmental works are taken aback, (iv) owing to this power storage, Nepal has to caugh off billions annually (how many, you better know) towards import of diesel and inverters. In view of these facts, I would view that our assessment of any power projects purely on the basis of economis of that particular project would be entirely misleading and wrong. An "unviable" project would result in exploitation  of our national resources for the time being (maximum 30 years) but see that we are going to own the same. We would better concentrate on how best we could manage the tariff after such period. Imagine about BHOTOKOSHI, which is termed as one of the blunders in terms of PPA being made in USD. It is this project that we are surviving with currently. I was not trying to offend you by any means. I am very much clear on one thing, we need more power projects at the moment such that we could "light" our own house. If someone is developing and exporting entire power--- what is wrong with that? afterall the project would be ours after some time, with the accruing benefit. We have criticized many power projects for one pretention or another since last 15 years. Had we allowed their development timely then, those projects would have become ours in next 15 years! The none development of those projects have yield nothing but rather helped deteriorate our industrial/infrastructural development prospects only.   Ratna Raj