July 18: The government has completed the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of the Lower Arun Hydropower Project.

The Department of Power Development in a statement informed that the preliminary report was prepared after the completion of the EIA work in the project area. Making the report public, the department has requested stakeholders to provide necessary feedback and suggestions.

According to the report, Chichila Rural Municipality Ward No. 2 and 3 of Sankhuwasabha, Silichong Rural Municipality Ward No. 4 and 5, Khandbari Municipality Ward No. 2, 10 and 11, and Salpasilicho Rural Municipality -1 of Bhojpur and Ward No. 1, 5, and 6 of Shadananda Municipality will be affected by the project.

The Investment Board has already signed an agreement with the Indian company Sutlej Power Corporation to move ahead with the construction process.

The project has proposed to use a total of 131.94 hectares of the intermediate zone, forest area, and government land and 29.97 hectares of private land of Makalu Barun National Park.

Meanwhile, the Indian company Satjal, which is constructing the Arun III Hydropower Project with a total capacity of 900 MW, has started the construction works of the lower Arun project as well. An agreement had been reached with the Indian company on July 11 to prepare a detailed feasibility report for the 679 MW project.

Sushil Bhatt, Chief Executive Officer of the Investment Board, and Nandlal Sharma, chairman of Sutlej Electricity Corporation, signed the MoU agreement on behalf of their respective organisations.

The semi-reservoir project generates 2,625 gigawatt-hours of energy annually. The 47th meeting of the Investment Board held on June 22 had approved the draft of the memorandum of understanding to be signed with the project developer Sutlej Power Corporation to issue a survey license for a detailed feasibility study.

Earlier, the board meeting on January 3, 2020, had selected Sutlej for the construction of the project in boot format. The total cost of the project is estimated to be around US$ 1300 million. As per the understanding, the detailed project report (DPR) will be prepared within two years.

It is estimated that the capacity of the project will be around 1000 MW when the resources are used at maximum capacity.

The Arun III project, located on the upper bank of the river, was handed over to the Sutlej Power Corporation by the government based on global competition. The project is being constructed under the full ownership of Sutlej.

From the project, Nepal will get 21.9 percent (197.1 MW) of electricity free of cost and the rest will be exported to India.