Officials express doubt over govts’ commitment

Although some progress has been achieved towards expediting the much-delayed Pancheswor Multipurpose Project, officials have expressed doubt whether the two governments—Nepal and India—are serious enough to operationalise the project. The Nepal government has not provided its share of annual budget to the Pancheswor Development Authority (PDA) for 2016, while the Indian side failed to send their Water Resource Secretary for the prescheduled fourth joint meeting of the PDA governing body held on July 4-5. The meeting was supposed to be co-chaired by Nepal’s Energy Secretary and India’s Secretary of Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation. Nepal is yet to provide Rs200 million, its share for the annual budget of 2016, although an equal share from India has already been received. In this bi-national project, both governments are entitled to put their budget shares as agreed. The third meeting of the PDA governing body held in March had approved an annual budget of Rs400 million for the PDA’s operation and logistics management. “However, the Finance Ministry is holding the file and is yet to release the budget,” said PDA CEO Mahendra Gurung. “This has raised question about our own seriousness.” The Finance Ministry even failed to send its representatives in the meeting of the governing body, he added. Shashi Shekhar, secretary of water resource of India, also failed to be present in the meeting. “This has happened for the second consecutive time,” said a PDA source. “This has raised questions over the commitment of the Indian side to expedite the project.” However, the meeting was presided by Energy Secretary Suman Sharma, co-chair from the Nepali side, and Additional Secretary UP Singh from the Indian side. During the meeting, a concept paper on legal status of the PDA was placed and discussed. “Since the PDA is a bi-national entity, there are some complications regarding the nature of the organisation, its registration and law under which it is governed,” said Gurung. “We have agreed to finalise the PDA’s legal status in the next meeting of the governing body.” The meeting also discussed the draft of the Detailed Project Report (DPR) of the multipurpose project as submitted by WAPCOS. “The executive committee of the PDA has given its feedback, but we are expecting the feedback from both the governments,” said Gurung. “Once we get timely feedback from the governments, the executive committee will finalise the DPR by October 2016.” A paper on human resource policy was also presented and discussed, with an agreement to take a decision in the next meeting of the governing body. The meeting also decided to shift the PDA headquarters to Mahendranagar by July-end. Source: ekantipur