India agrees to solve Koshi, Gandak issues

But will India solve the issue and pay conpensation. Nobody believes as India is big in geography but wicked in heart and money matters.

An Indian delegation participating in a meeting of Nepal-India Joint Committee on Koshi and Gandak Projects that ended in Lalitpur today, agreed to solve the half-a-century old issues related to the two projects.
The Indian side, led by Devi Rajak, Engineer-in-Chief of Water Resources Department, Patna, agreed on the formation of a sub-committee to recommend structural changes on Gandak project to ensure supply of 300 cusecs of water to Nepal from the Gandak reservoir, said Uma Kant Jha, Director General of Department of Irrigation, who led the Nepali delegation.

In the Gandak Treaty of 1959, India had agreed to supply this volume of water to Nepal round the year. However, the promise was not kept. While the issue has been raised by Nepal since 1961, this is the first time a sub-committee is being formed to address the issue. The sub-committee will submit its report to another joint meeting in December this year, after which structural changes will be made in the Gandak project, Jha added.

On the Koshi project, India agreed to verify and then release compensation for 1516 bighas of land in Nepal submerged after the construction of Koshi Barrage. Nepal has claimed Rs 28,000 per bigha for this section of submerged land. Meanwhile, the Indian side also agreed to verify the area of another section of land submerged by the barrage to initiate the compensation process. This section measures 4,400 bighas.

This is the first Nepal-India meet on water resources since the February 1, 2005 coup. The meeting, supposed to take place every six months, last took place in December 2004.