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Multi-stakeholder Hydropower Disputes and Its Resolutions in Nepal

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Water Issues in Himalayan South Asia

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Abstract

The construction of hydropower projects has long been sources of protracted internal disputes in South Asia and Nepal cannot remain an exception in this regard. With the proliferation of hydroelectric industry in Nepal since 1990, disputes between the government, hydropower construction companies, civil society actors, and local communities on issues around environment protection, compensation distribution, benefit sharing and resettlement of displaced communities have been a common phenomenon. Despite occurrence of these disputes over the period of time, how hydropower disputes are emerged and resolved in Nepal is something less explored issue and this has limited our ability to understand some successful dispute resolution practices in hydropower sector. Considering this fact, this chapter focuses on assessing the dynamics of hydropower related disputes in Nepal. Drawing from the examples of three hydropower projects (proposed and ongoing), namely, Upper Tamakoshi, Arun III and West Seti, our study finds that lack of adequate information sharing among the local and national stakeholders and the violation of national and international legal and policy provisions significantly contribute to escalate the disputes between hydropower stakeholders. We also found that disputes between hydroelectric project stakeholders in Nepal are often resolved on ad hoc basis. We further found that unclear and ambiguous government policies regarding compensation, benefit sharing and resettlement issues and the lack of institutionalized dispute resolution policies and mechanisms are two highly contributing factors behind escalating hydropower disputes in Nepal.

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Notes

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    The project suffered the loss of 10 m per day due to the obstruction of work by the project workers.

  74. 74.

    Neupane, S. (2016). Project, People and Consent Managing Local Expectation in Hydropower Development. Kathmandu: Center Department of Public Administration.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Social Change, Kathmandu, Nepal

    Sanju Koirala, Prakash Bhattarai & Sarita Barma

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  1. Sanju Koirala
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  2. Prakash Bhattarai
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  1. Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Amit Ranjan

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Koirala, S., Bhattarai, P., Barma, S. (2020). Multi-stakeholder Hydropower Disputes and Its Resolutions in Nepal. In: Ranjan, A. (eds) Water Issues in Himalayan South Asia. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9614-5_6

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