The 48-year-old Gandak Agreement between Nepal and India on the use of water of Gandaki River has to be reviewed, local state-owned newspaper The Rising Nepal reported Saturday.
The Agreement on the Gandak Irrigation and Power Project was signed between the then deputy prime minister Subarna Shumsher Rana on behalf of Nepali government and the then Indian Ambassador Bhagwan Sahay in Kathmandu, on Dec. 4, 1959.
The cross-border project is for using the Gandaki River for irrigation, electricity generation and flood control. "But none of the provision have benefited Nepal," the report said.
The report says despite being the upper riparian country, Nepal has remained at the receiving end since the agreement and understandings have not been put into effect, a member of the irrigation committee on the Nepalese side said.
Because of the dam constructed on the Gandaki River, around 30 villages of Nawalparasi district, some 160 southwest of capital Kathmandu, suffer from inundation and river cutting.
India has constructed 11 gates from the dam and taken water to irrigate its land in the Uttar Pradesh and Bihar states. On the Nepalese side, although there are three gates, but one gate is always closed. "The Nepalese farmers are in a more disadvantaged position because the keys to the gates are in Indian hands," the report reveals.
The agreement also has provision for electricity generation. There are three power-generating units of 5,000 kw each and India has constructed a 15,000 kw power generating unit in Nepal's land.
The 15,000 kw power unit was handed over to Nepal 24 years ago, but now only two of the three turbines are in operation.
"The Gandak agreement has unilaterally benefited India and it is not in Nepal's interest at all," said Ghanashyam Koirala, member of the Federation of National Irrigation Consumers' Association of Nepal.
"The more the agreement is allowed to continue the more Nepalese will suffer," says Nawalparasi party district chairman from Nepali Congress Krishna Chandra Nepali. The second ruling party after Nepali Congress, the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) district committee member Krishna Poudel also says the agreement should be totally revised in the interest of the Nepalese.
Source: Xinhua
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