Confirming the meeting, Minister for Energy Dr Prakash Sharan Mahat said, "We are committed to holding the JCWR and the JMCWR meetings. India has proposed November 9-10 as the date for JCWR. The JMCWR will taken place after a week of the JCWR meeting."
This has come at a time when media reports lately said that the JCWR process has been ´stalled´. "The process for joint-talks was never stalled. We are finalizing the agenda for the meeting," Mahat told myrepublica.com.
India had initially proposed September 1-2 for the JCWR meeting and September 3-4 for the JMCWR. It was decided in March that the ministerial meeting would be held in New Delhi. The Indian side proposed the following dates one and half months after that.
The Ministry of Energy, which missed the September date, earlier had said that the meeting was rescheduled in October. However, the JCWR could not take place due to the delay.
The JCWR is to finalize the much-awaited Terms of Reference (ToR) for the Pancheshwar Development Authority (PDA) and will discuss various existing bilateral mechanism in water resources sector.
"We will hold discussions on bilateral mechanism, but the focus is Pancheshwar Project," Mahat said.
Nepal is bearing an annual loss to the tune of Rs 45.88 billion just from the electricity generation side of the PMPP and another Rs 5.69 billion from irrigation.
akanshya@myrepublica.com
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