Role of Energy in New Nepal

(Courtesy: Kalyan Dev Bhattarai)

To day from politicians to intellectuals all are talking about new Nepal, future Nepal, inclusive Nepal and blab blab. The objectives of the different groups may be different to speak about new Nepal, from deceiving the poor innocent people to fulfill their petty interest to real determination of developing the country in new and progressive way. However, what ever pretext you add in front of Nepal to stress your determination to develop Nepal, it will not be fulfilled until you are able to use your available natural resources like the water, herbs, forest, manpower, natural diversity, traditional culture, and etc to the maximum possible in optimum way.

Our small lovely country is well equipped with many types of resources like human, raw minerals, water, forest, and many others but due to lack of political willpower, rampant corruption and absence of required dedication to develop the country, we are unable to use our available resources even to the minimum level. Here we all must understand clearly that by the rhetoric speech of the present day corrupt politician the country can neither develop nor solve its centuries old problems of poverty, exploitation, illiteracy, caste & religious supremacy, corruption, and lack of awareness. These were the main issues and responsible for the Maoist to raise arms and if we are unable to solve these problems some new power will develop in the country and start another arms struggle. To solve all the mentioned problems country need new leadership of young generation with new vision and determination with self respect earned through the honesty and dedication to wards the country. The same old corrupt bunch of hypocritical present day leadership can bring no change.

The vision of future Nepal can not and will not be materialize by following the same old culture of deceiving people and fulfilling the vested interest of few corrupt and proven failures of the past. Future Nepal must be visualized by youth generation to include their aspiration and fulfill their political, social and economical requirement rather than by the same old bureaucrats and decision makers, who have bitterly failed not only to fulfill their responsibility but also to lead the country in the path of development and also bitterly misused and sabotaged the trust of the people. See how cunningly the present P.M provided millions of rupees to his brother Mr. Sushil Koirala in the mane of medical treatment and also to K,P Bhattraai to build his house. Such type of looting the national property is the main objectives of present day leaders and to hope that the same corrupt politicians will build new Nepal is intellectual bankruptcy.

With this introduction I am limiting myself in this article to the role of energy in future Nepal, provided the country is lead by new young generation. It is a well known fact that Nepal has the vast water resources to develop our country provided the country can come out of the old stupid notion that “Nepal can be rich by selling electricity to India” This totally wrong, and antinational concept is developed and campaigned by water mafia group, who from their illegal earning are able to influence the decision makers and other concerned sector of the society as they have plenty of liquid cash earned through commission and other wrong doings. The simple logic of business is that one who invests will get the fruit of profit. Nepal at present economic scenario can not investment required money for possible mega projects and who invests in such projects they will benefit from such projects. The government can be expected to get the fixed royalty as mentioned in the water law and other benefits mentioned in the agreement if any, which can not be major to make any country rich, as in such scenario no outside investor will come to invest huge money.

If we can come out of this stupid notion of selling the hydropower energy to India and getting rich, the opportunity is there to vastly develop our own country by using our own resources for our own benefit. Hydropower is one of the main available natural resources, if properly used can play very important role to develop Nepal fast and vastly fulfilling the vision of new-Nepal. The vision of new Nepal can not be achieved fully depending upon donor’s co-operation, aid and loan. All such cooperation is required for developing country like Nepal, but only as a secondary source, the primary source should be the proper utilization of our own natural resources, honesty, and strong determination to develop the country. Hydropower is one of the main natural resources of the country available for the development of the country. I see the following uses of hydropower in Nepal to cope with the requirement of new-Nepal.

Present scenario

At present Nepal produces only 397.89 MW (Excluding the three thermal power installation of 55.66 MW in total) out of possible 83000 MW potentialities, out of which 42330 MW is proved economically feasible. This shows how poor is our utilization of available resources.
The 550 KW Pharphing hydropower plant was the first hydropower of country which was installed during 1911. It took more than three decades to add another 640KW Sundarijal plant. Further 2.5 MW plant of Panauti was added in 1965.In 1989 the total installed capacity reached to 250 MW due to cooperation of friendly countries and financial institution like World Bank.
The hydropower development was very slow due to various factors and the period of nineties was wasted arguing on the yes or no for Arun III project. In 1995 World Bank pulled out from Arun III which placed the country in imbalance situation of demand and supply, forcing the country to start load shedding

At present load shedding is regular phenomena and future looks more blink. Even with the present growth rate the projected demand of the country by 2020 will be 1840 MW suggesting big gap in supply.

In this scenario our thrust for the optimum utilization of our available resources of the Hydropower should be to develop Hydropower in the range of 50-60 MW cumulatively in all the 75 districts instead of thinking of Mega projects like Pancheswor, Mahakali etc. This policy of developing of Hydropower in all the 75 districts will provide regional balance on development and provide benefits on social, political, and techno-economic sectors. With this policy we will be able to generate a kind of trust to the people from east to west that they are not neglected and included in the path of development. Further this will provide the required energy to all the 75 districts for the industrial growth as well as for other purpose like domestic etc.

Transportation

Transportation is one of the vital sectors for the development of the country to materialize the dream of the new Nepal. Without linking all the seventy five districts of the country with each other to facilitate the flow of the products of each district easily and cheaply, the vision of new Nepal can not be fulfilled. To day we are in such a pathetic situation where we can not supply our own products like apple of mustang, Junar of Ramachap and food grains of southern belt, to all seventy five districts and force to import the same materials in costly price from outside. I feel shame to accept that even after 56 long years of so called independency many of my country’s districts are not connected by road and poor citizen must walk along the ups and downs of the hills to go from one part of the country to other parts even to fulfill simple requirements of governmental formalities.

The frequent landslides and other problems especially during rainy season which hamper the road transportation is mainly due to, the fact that we are forced to cut the slope during the road construction to maintain its required width.

Net work of Electrical Trains

The best solution to visualize the new Nepal is not to connect the districts by 4-6 lane wide high ways but to connect all the seventy five districts of the country with narrow gauge electrical train. This will utilize the available hydropower of the country and save billions of foreign currency which are used to buy fossil fuels from foreign countries. Further this will fulfill our requirements of transportation network essential for the country’s development. The technology is so well developed that it is not necessary to build wide and standard highway which forces us to cut the hill slope to high degree making the landslide and other natural disaster inevitable, to fulfill our transport network, which can be easily accomplished by network of electric train. In addition to this electrical train along the east-west highway will also save lot of money which can be used for other development process

Trolley buses

Similarly the use of trams and electrical buses in the major cosmopolitan cities like Katmandu, Pokhara, Biratnagar, birgung, Butal, Bhairava and many others will save our hard earned foreign currency which are used at present for buying fossil fuels like petroleum, diesel etc.

Rope Ways

Nepal being mountainous the transportation of any construction or day-to-day usable materials from one place to other is very difficult, costly and time consuming. The rope way which has huge potential in the country and very useful as well as practical also can be well developed by properly utilizing the hydropower of the country and can change the development scenario of the country to fit with the vision of new Nepal.

The only cable car of Manakamna has proved that if properly use, cable car can also play very important role in transportation sector, and also can be successful commercially also. There are many potential sites where cable car can be as successful as Manakamna. In new Nepal I see many cable cars all round the country connecting the important temples and tourist center like Muktinath, Gosaikunda, Pathibhara, Thorang, Pass etc.

Industry

The vision of new Nepal can not be achieved with out industrial revolution in the country. Industrial development of the country is very essential to develop our country fast to fulfill the basic requirement of the new-Nepal and the most important factor for the industrial growth is the easy availability of required energy in reasonable price. Without required energy you can not imagine of industrial growth in the country and without industrial growth you can not fulfill the vision of new Nepal.

Fortunately our country has huge potential of hydropower to fulfill the requirement of energy for fast and vast industrial growth to any scale. To day due to high price and unavailability of electricity many potential industry like cement factory, electrolysis, are not feasible in Nepal even though other requirement like raw materials and labor force are easily available in competitive price. Even the existing rubber factory is in problem simply because it can not depend on the energy supply of the NEA and forced to use high priced diesel generated energy to fulfill its requirement

Not only cement and rubber Industry many other industry like automobile industry, electrolysis of water to separate oxygen and hydrogen where the hydrogen can be used to develop fuel to cars, and oxygen for hospital, pesticide/fertilizer industry, canning industry especially where the available fruits like orange, apple lemon, Junar etc have limited market in its natural form due to various reasons can be easily developed provided the energy is available in cheep price.

To-day Nepal lacks industry not because it has no essential raw materials but because any industry becomes economically unfeasible due to high price of energy and compulsion of under table money in every step of our development. At present the government acts as a hurdle for any type of industrial development or any entrepreneurship and can be said without any hesitation that without bringing change in this attitude the vision of new Nepal is impossible. With the hope that the new government of Maoist will take necessary measurement to curb the rampant corruption through the development of due punishment culture to the corrupt people in the country, the development of hydropower will help for the industrial revolution in the country.

Fisheries

Fisheries development is another sector where the tailrace water of hydropower can be properly used and economic benefit can be obtained.

Agriculture

Agriculture is another sector, the development of which is essential to achieve the vision of new Nepal. Nepal being agricultural country and most of the population of the country being engaged in agriculture and its related activities, to imagine Nepal will develop without development of agriculture and its related sector will be foolishness. In this context the role of hydropower become very important to develop the agriculture sector. Irrigation is one of the important parameters for the development of agriculture sector that cannot be optimally developed without the energy being available at reasonable cost.

The government plan to invest heavily on irrigation scheme especially using the underground water through shallow as well as deep tube well scheme. Today most of the tube well scheme is being unproductive mainly due to the heavy tariff of electricity, especially after the removal of the subsidies in the shallow tube well scheme. At present government is continuing the subsidies in the surface as well as deep tube well scheme, but under great pressure from international donor agencies to remove the subsidies. By optimally using our available water resources for the generation of hydropower, the price of the energy can be brought to affordable rate, which will create such a situation where the subsidies from government will not be required for any type of irrigation scheme.

Cold storage and chilling house

The potentiality of chilling house and cold storage in Nepal is very high due to the transportation problems. To fulfill the aspiration of people, new Nepal need as many chilling house and cold storage as the cold drinks and wine shop are noticed to-day. To day due to high energy tariff few of the existing cold storage and chilling house are also not functioning properly and economically unviable. The unsuccessful stories of chilling house and cold storage are mainly due to high energy tariff and we must make the energy available in cheep and affordable price. This is possible if we start developing hydropower at the range of 70-100MW cumulatively in each districts.

Herbal Plants

Nepal is very rich in herbal plants and all types of medically important plants are available in the country. But unfortunately the Nepalese people are unable to use such available resources of the country which are exploited by few corrupt people. This is because the government lacks the proper planning to tap all these available resources and make the best use of these resources. The vision of new Nepal will not be successful with out using tall such naturally available resources of the country. To use all such herbal and other related plants we must have numbers of pharmaceutical industry in the country and that is possible provided we can supply the uninterrupted energy in affordable price. This is not possible with out developing our vastly available hydropower.

Replacement of Traditional Energy

It is a known fact that to day electricity cover only 3% of our total energy use and rest all are cover by wood, fossil fuel, cow dung and etc. Such use of energy in a country where the potentially for hydropower is huge is very ridiculous. Further the environmental effect by use of all these energy and its ill effect in the health of the population are also well known. In this context the new Nepal must replace all such use of traditional energy like wood, cow dung fossil fuel etc by clean energy so that the environmental ill effect as well as the health hazards are minimized. Such replacement is possible only if we changed our concept that Nepal can be rich by selling energy to India and start using our resources for our own use for the development of the Nepalese people.

Conclusion

In this short article I can not deal all the related matters in details. My stress is just to express that the new Nepal concept can not be achieved simply by formulating plan but require some drastic modification in the development concept. Hydropower is our resources and best use of these available resources for our own development is the only possible and feasible solution. So far country’s policy is prepared based on personal vested interest without giving any importance to the development of the people. Time has come now to change our development concept and start doing something seriously for the development of the country and its people.