Chisapani Gorge, sitB oi the Karnali project WATER IN NEPAL

Falling water is Nepal´s wealth. As is the case with some other small, land-locked countries like Paraguay, Laos and Bhutan, its hydro-electric potential is Nepal´s greatest natural resource. Given Nepal´s long period of isolation until the 1950s, it is under¬standable that this obvious but unsur-veyed potential remained virtually untouched although a small hydel sta¬tion was developed at Pharpmg as far back as 1911. Other micro and medium-small projects have been un¬dertaken more recently. Yet, as Gyawali remarks, only four percent of Nepal´s population has access to electricity at present, much of this in and around Kathmandu-Hetauda-Bir-ganj. The average cost per kwh is 6 US cents, or NRsl.60.

According to Gyawali, development costs of hydro-electricity hi Nepal have been far higher than, say, in neighbour¬ing India ~ partly on account of the high cost of small hydro units. A weak data base ~ hydrological, geological and seismic — is a limitation that can and must be overcome. But the major thesis that Gyawali propounds in this thought-provoking book is that Nepal has been unable to exhibit the social and political will to develop despite the existence of a small, elite segment of modernisers. These modernisers are unable to guarantee that the substantial investments that hydro development requires will promote equity and general welfare. He contrasts the drive and work ethic of the occidental homo faber with the more contemplative, non-material and other-worldly out-look of the oriental homo mysticus, cocooned, as in Nepal, hi a still stag¬nant and feudal society. Any implica¬tion that development, especially large hydro development, will not take placeunless there is social and political change would be mistaken beyond a point as structural changes in society are both the product and the cause of development. Gyawali´s statement is not and should not therefore be read as a counsel of despair.