MAHALI SAGAR BANDH

MAHALI SAGAR BANDH

Introduction

1          Despite international law, convention, India has shown another forceful act against her neighboring country which is not new to the countries share border.  The construction of controversial MAHALE SAGAR BANDH simply shows his attitude towards Nepal. It has been build with out consulting Nepalese authority. The constructed barrage will have devastating effect of submerging a large portion, nearly 600 HA of land in Nepal. Indian is raising the height and width of the dam every year. Currently they have constructed few gates and put slab on the top of it for communication purposes.

Background

2          MAHALE SAGAR BANDH is located in BEDAULI VDC, SE from No 50 border pillar to RANGAPUR VDC, SW to No 50 pillar. Total length is 2.2 km, intended to join BAJAHA Dam which is located at pillar 46, 47 and 48. India started this construction just after the construction of controversial dams RASIYAWAL KHURDALOTAN and LAXMANPUR dam in 2056-2058 BS

3          India has erected all above mentioned dams against the "1996 Helsinki Treaty" and "Non-Navigational Rule 1997". According to these rules, no any country can make any permanent construction as well as dam structure with out agreement of the neighboring country in the border. Construction of dam with in 15 km downstream and upstream in the border area is against International law. The MAHALE SAGAR dam is located with in 516m from the Nepal-India border.

Current situation

4          Indian side argues that it was already constructed in 1901 with the consultation with Nepalese government and now this is only the renovation. Nepalese government officially requested to stop the construction for eleventh times but the Indian side did not respond in diplomatic way.  Different political parties of the country also had submitted their genuine protest paper to the Indian Embassy at Kathmandu but the embassy too denial any action against it. Last year it was halted for a while but they have reconstruction again and now it is in final state of completion.

5          Effects on Nepalese side       Ground survey have clearly indicated that The villages near to the dam side KACHRIHAWA, BHAGWANPUR, LAHRAULI, RANGAPUR, BAISIYA, and PARSOHIYA villages are likely to submerged, at least 1000 families are going to be affected

Comments

6          Indian interest to construct this dam is seems to be with two motives, the first one is safeguard Indian territory from flood and the second to facilitate irrigation in Indian land.  

7          More than 150 rivers enter Indian territory crossing the indo-Nepal border. About 60 of them have acted as border line. So it seems that if India continues to erect chain of unilateral construction in the border that will only benefits India and leaves behind various setbacks to Nepal. So Government of Nepal should take effort to stop such actions immediately before it takes final shape.

8          It is necessary to initiate diplomatic bilateral discussion to solve the controversial issue. If not then government has to look international pressure on this matter. It is been many times that we have been always suffering the consequence come out from the border dispute, now time came to take strong stand against Indian foreign policy to safeguard Nepalese community based issue and National interest.