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Stakeholders have expressed serious concern over the growing risk of natural disasters in the Himalayan and hilly regions due to climate change and their severe impact on the energy sector, which is considered a backbone of the national economy.

At a Friday Forum organised by the Independent Power Producers’ Association, Nepal (IPPAN) on “Building Climate-Resilient Infrastructure in a Changing Climate and Lessons from the Bhotekoshi Disaster”, they stressed the need for the government, Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA), private sector and insurance companies to work together to rebuild and restore hydropower projects damaged by the floods in the Bhotekoshi and Trishuli basins.

Former Energy Minister and former Managing Director of the NEA Kul Man Ghising called on the government to immediately declare the Bhotekoshi-Trishuli river corridor a ‘special area’ to support the recovery of local communities and the energy sector affected by the disaster.

He said that the government and concerned agencies should move ahead with concrete policies by declaring the region a ‘special area’ to revive the Bhotekoshi and Trishuli hydropower cascade.

According to Ghising, the catastrophic deluge - accompanied by massive amounts of debris - and the avalanche that struck the Bhotekoshi and Trishuli river corridors on August 26 have set back the economic, social, and physical infrastructure of the entire Rasuwa district by 20 to 30 years. “Heart-rending scenes can be seen when visiting villages in Rasuwa. With young people, vehicle drivers and technical workers swept away by the flood, only children and elderly people remain in the villages,” he said, describing the situation after the disaster.

He stressed that the government must take immediate measures to revive the energy sector and local communities from the crisis. Ghising said the government should provide customs exemptions, special financial recovery packages, extension to generation licences and deadlines for the required commercial operation date, and facilitate legal provisions for capacity enhancement of affected hydropower projects by declaring the corridor a ‘special area’.

He also said the access road from Betrawati to Rasuwagadhi should be upgraded to at least a two-lane road or wider and constructed on a war footing to connect it with the Chinese border. Calling for modernisation of technology and design, Ghising said that powerhouses to be built in the future should adopt remotely operated technology, following models used in developed countries such as Austria and Switzerland.

He also suggested strengthening the safety of main access tunnels and making emergency exits mandatory. IPPAN President Mohan Kumar Dangi said 12 hydropower projects and one solar power project in the Rasuwa-Trishuli corridor were directly affected by the flash flood on August 26.

Of them, eight operating hydropower projects with a combined capacity of 281 MW have been completely disconnected from the national transmission grid, while construction of four projects with a combined capacity of 388 MW has come to a halt.

With a total of 669 MW of generation capacity affected, the disaster has dealt a major blow to the national electricity system and investment in the energy sector, he said.

Dangi said doubts have begun to emerge in society about whether hydropower projects should continue to be built following the disaster. He stressed the need to dispel such misconceptions through scientific and technical studies.

He said the private sector remained committed to the national target of generating 30,000 MW of electricity over the next 10 years and urged the government to play a supportive role in resolving the problems faced by project developers. Presenting a paper based on scientific simulation technology and geological data, Dr. Basanta Raj Adhikari, director of the Centre for Biological Technology Studies at Tribhuvan University and a hydro-meteorologist, said the flood was not caused by normal seasonal rainfall but was an unprecedented disaster involving either a glacial lake outburst or a sudden massive debris flow in the high Himalayas triggered by climate change.

According to Adhikari, such catastrophic disasters, which normally occur once every 5,000 to 10,000 years, have started recurring more frequently due to climate change.

He suggested changing the design criteria for hydropower projects, strengthening the structural safety of tunnels and intakes, selecting safer sites for powerhouses in elevated or upper Himalayan areas, and installing advanced flood early-warning systems along river corridors.

President of the Nepal Insurers’ Association Birendra Baidwar Chhetri said insurers, in coordination with the Nepal Insurance Authority, would settle claims of up to Rs. 50 million to Rs. 100 million, as well as vehicle, personal accident and house insurance claims, within one month through a simplified procedure.

He called for a legal mechanism to shorten the existing seven-to 10-year waiting period for people missing in the flood so that accident insurance claims could be settled more quickly.

Chhetri estimated the hydropower sector’s losses from the disaster at Rs. 15 billion to Rs. 23 billion or more - two to four times the annual claims borne by Nepal’s non-life insurers.