Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, February 23:

The meeting between Nepali and Indian sides concerning the Koshi High Dam (KHD) has been postponed indefinitely following the royal takeover. The meeting was supposed to be the second one as the first was held in Kathmandu in October which took the decision concerning field offices around the project site. The session, which was scheduled through February 14-16 in New Delhi, was likely to take a decision on the selection of consultant to further study the project, said sources at the Ministry of Water Resources.

The issue which was likely to be settled was whether the study should be done by the states

involved or by a hired consultant. The funding of the study is being done by India at the cost

of Rs 300 million.

It may be said that while the Indian side is keen on the project as it would curb flooding in its Bihar state through the monsoon season, the Nepali side expects to benefit from added irrigation and power generation benefits accruing out of the project. The Nepali officials are expecting enough water which could help in irrigating agricultural land on the east of Bagmati river. Added attraction lies in the fact that both the nations expect to benefit from the regulated water supply throughout the year, something which could rule out threats of floods as long as the dam is not built on Saptakoshi river at Chatara.

Meanwhile, the issues which Nepali officials are keen to be clear about is how much added land will Nepal be able to irrigate from the regulated flow and how much power would the diversion generate. A report has put the perpetual water flow in Kamala diversion at 15 cumecs while combined regulated flow of water flowing from the proposed dam could be between 400-500 cumecs. Compare this with the average flow of water which is found to be 1409 cumecs.