Conflict Management Process (CMP) in Melamchi Drinking Water Supply Development
Project (MWSDP), Nepal
(A case study from MWSDP’s Project areas Helambu and Melamchi)
M.Sc. Thesis by Sangita Karki
November 2012
Integrated Water management (IWM)
Conflict Management Process (CMP) in Melamchi Water Supply Development Project
(MWSDP), Nepal
(A case study from MWSDP’s Project areas Helambu and Melamchi)
Major Thesis by Sangita Karki
Study Program:
Master in Environment Science (MES)
Student registration number:
830102422110
Major Thesis Integrated Water Management
ESS-80836
Supervisor:
Ir. Bert Bruins
Wageningen University
Integrated Water Engineering (IWE)
Wageningen – The Netherlands
Dr. ir. Deepa Joshi
Wageningen University
Integrated Water Engineering (IWE)
Wageningen – The Netherlands
Fons Jasper
Wageningen University
Integrated Water Management
Wageningen – The Netherlands
Examiner:
Prof. Dr. Wim Cofino
i|P age
Contents
Conflict Management Process (CMP) in Melamchi Water Supply Development Project (MWSDP), Nepal............ i
Contents ................................................................................................................................................................. ii
List of Tables .......................................................................................................................................................... iv
List of Figures .......................................................................................................................................................... v
Abbreviations......................................................................................................................................................... vi
Abstract ............................................................................................................................................................... viii
Acknowledgement ................................................................................................................................................. ix
Chapter I ................................................................................................................................................................. 1
INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................................. 1
1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................ 1
1.1 Research Background ................................................................................................................................... 2
1.2 Problem Statement ........................................................................................................................................ 3
1.3 General Objective and Theoretical Framework ............................................................................................ 3
1.4 Report Outline .............................................................................................................................................. 4
Chapter II ................................................................................................................................................................ 5
Theoretical Framework ........................................................................................................................................... 5
2. Overview of the Chapter ..................................................................................................................................... 5
2.1 Conceptual Framework for Research Study ................................................................................................. 5
2.1.1 Explanation of Research Concept ................................................................................................. 6
2.1.2 Definition of Key Words...................................................................................................................... 8
2.2 Indicators Used for the Research ................................................................................................................ 14
2.2.1 Indicators for Conflict Analysis ....................................................................................................... 14
2.2.2 Indicators for Analysis of Causes of Conflicts................................................................................. 14
2.2.3 Indicators for Conflict Management Process ................................................................................ 14
2.2.4 Strength and Weakness of Conflict Management Process ................................................................ 14
2.2.5 Learning .......................................................................................................................................... 14
Chapter III ............................................................................................................................................................ 15
Research Methodology ......................................................................................................................................... 15
3. Research Methods............................................................................................................................................. 15
3.1 Location of the Research Area .................................................................................................................... 15
3.2 Stakeholder Identification ........................................................................................................................... 17
3.3 Data Collection Methods ............................................................................................................................ 18
3.3.1 Semi-structured Interviews ............................................................................................................... 18
3.3.2 Focus Group Discussion (FGD) ........................................................................................................ 19
3.4 Data Analysis Methods ............................................................................................................................... 19
3.4.1 Stakeholder Analysis for Compensation Study ............................................................................... 20
3.4.2 Stakeholder and Event Analysis for Participation Study ................................................................... 20
3.4.3 The Event and Demand Analysis for Indigenous Right Study ............................................................ 20
3.4.4. Assessment of Strength and Weakness of CMP for Recommendation............................................ 20
Chapter IV ............................................................................................................................................................ 21
Research Result .................................................................................................................................................... 21
4. Overview of the Chapter ................................................................................................................................... 21
4.1 Stakeholder Identification and their Interest ............................................................................................... 21
4.1.1 Central Level Stakeholder ................................................................................................................... 21
4.1.2 District Level Stakeholder................................................................................................................. 22
4.1.3 Local Level Stakeholder .................................................................................................................... 23
4.1.4 Causes of Conflicts ............................................................................................................................. 25
4.1.5 Conflict Management Process ............................................................................................................ 29
Chapter V.............................................................................................................................................................. 36
Disucssion............................................................................................................................................................. 36
5. Analysis of the Results .................................................................................................................................... 36
5.1 Causes of Conflicts ..................................................................................................................................... 36
5.1.1 External Factors .................................................................................................................................. 36
5.1.2 Internal Factors ................................................................................................................................... 37
5.2 Conflict Management Processes ................................................................................................................. 40
5.2.1 Conflict of Compensation and its Management Process ................................................................ 40
5.2.2 Outcome of the Negotiation Process ................................................................................................. 43
ii | P a g e
5.2.3 Strength and Weakness of Project and Conflict Management Process ............................................ 44
5.2.4 Compensation Plan for Conflict Management ................................................................................... 45
5.2.5 Lessons learned .............................................................................................................................. 47
5.3 Conflict Management Process “Participation” ........................................................................................... 48
5.3.1 First Phase (1997 to 2002), Conflict Creation Phase .......................................................................... 49
5.3.2 Second Phase (2002 to 2007) Conflict Management Phase .............................................................. 50
5.3.3 Third Phase (after 2007/ 2008 to 2010) Post Conflict Management Phase ...................................... 51
5.3.4 Lessons learned from Overall Process of Conflict of Participation and its Management................. 56
5.4 Conflict Management Process (Indigenous Rights) .................................................................................... 57
5.4.1 Extra Benefits for Hyolmo Upliftment Program (HUP) ...................................................................... 57
5.4.2 Empowerment of Marginalized Group ............................................................................................... 58
5.4.3 Lessons learned from the CMP ........................................................................................................... 58
5.5 Research Process ........................................................................................................................................ 59
5.5.1 Limitation and Scope of the Research ............................................................................................. 59
5.5.2 Validity of the Research .................................................................................................................... 59
Chapter VI ............................................................................................................................................................ 60
Conclusion and Recommendation ........................................................................................................................ 60
6. Overview of the Chapter ................................................................................................................................... 60
6.1 Causes of Conflicts ......................................................................................................................................... 60
6.1.1 Common Causes............................................................................................................................ 60
6.1.2 Specific Causes .............................................................................................................................. 61
6.1.3 External Causes ............................................................................................................................ 61
6.2 Conflict Management Process .................................................................................................................... 61
6.2.1 Conflict Management Process “Compensation” ............................................................................. 61
6.2.2 Conflict Management Process “Participation” ............................................................................... 61
6.2.3 Conflict Management Process “Indigenous Rights” ....................................................................... 62
6.3 Recommendations ................................................................................................................................. 62
6.3.1 Reccommendations for Conflict Management Caused by Internal Factors................................. 62
6.3.2 Reccommendations for Conflict Management Caused by External Factors ................................ 63
References ........................................................................................................................................................ 64
Annexes: ........................................................................................................................................................... 66
Annex 1.1 Focus Group Discussion ................................................................................................................... 66
Annex 1.2 Interview with Committees HSMC and HCC .................................................................................... 69
Annex 1.3 Interview with MWSDP and SSDSC .................................................................................................. 70
Annex 1.4 Lists of Participants for the Interview .............................................................................................. 71
Annex 1.5 Lists of stakeholders Used for Data Collection ................................................................................ 71
Annex 1.6 Extra benefits for Hyolmo Uplfitment Program (HUP) .................................................................... 72
iii | P a g e
List of Tables
Table 1 Positive and negative outcome of conflict ................................................................................. 8
Table 2 Hyolmo demands and recommendations by study team ........................................................ 33
Table 3 Criteria for compensation plan ................................................................................................ 46
iv | P a g e
List of Figures
Figure 1 Conceptual framework of Conflict Management Process (CMP) ............................................. 5
Figure 2 Stakeholder participation level based on Blackman (2003) ................................................... 12
Figure 3 Project Cycle given by Blackman (2003) ................................................................................. 13
Figure 4 Area Coverage of MWSDP (Khatri- Chhetri, et al., 2006, p. 19) ............................................. 16
Figure 5 Interview with Ex. ED (Bharat KC), MWSDB ............................................................................ 19
Figure 6 Group discussion with teacher in Melamchi........................................................................... 19
Figure 7 Stakeholder involved in CMP .................................................................................................. 21
Figure 8 interview with Bharat KC (Ex. Deputy Director of MWSDB) ................................................... 22
Figure 9 Interview with Public Relation Officer, SSDSC ........................................................................ 23
Figure 10 interview with Secretary of HSMC, MWSDB ......................................................................... 23
Figure 11 Conflict management process (Compensation).................................................................... 30
Figure 12 Stakeholder categorization and prioritization in negotiation process ................................. 41
Figure 13 Overall Conflict Management Process “Compensation” ...................................................... 45
Figure 14 Information exchange process between project and primary stakeholder ......................... 47
Figure 15 Different phases of conflict creation and management ....................................................... 49
Figure 16 Institutional structure of SUP................................................................................................ 52
Figure 17 Conflict management process "Participation" ...................................................................... 56
v|P age
Abbreviations
ADB
ACDC
BAP
BS
CDO
CG
CGT
CIRT
CMP
CS
CWC
DAO
DED
DDO
DFO
DLRO
DoED
DDC
ED
FGD
FOG
HCC
HMG
HLCC
FAO
HSMC
HUP
IGCD
ILO
LDC
LDO
LRO
IRG
MDS
MLCC
MLCG
MWSDB
MWSDP
MWSPA
MPPW
vi | P a g e
Asian Development Bank
Authorization Compensation Determination Committee
Behavior and Attitude of Primary Stakeholder
Bikram Sambat
Chief District Officer
Collaborative Governance
Collaborative Governance Theory
Community Issue Resolution Team
Conflict Management Process
Civil Society
Chief Working Committee
District Administration Office
Deputy Executive Director
District Development Officer
District Forest Office
District Land Revenue office/r
Department of Electricity Development
District Development Committee
Executive Director
Focus Group Discussion
Formation of Group
Hyolmo Concerned Committee
His Majesty Government
Hyolmo Local Concerned Committee
Food and Agriculture Organization
Hyolmo Sindhu-Melamchi Valley Social Uplift Program
Implementation Committee
Hyolmo Upliftment program
Income Generation and Community Development
International Labor Organization
Local Development Committee
Local Development Office/r
Land Revenue Office/r
International Resource Group
Melamchi Diversion Scheme
Melamchi Local Concerned Committee
Melamchi Local Concerned Groups
Melamchi Water Supply Development Board
Melamchi Water Supply Development Project
Melamchi Water Supply Project Authority
Ministry of Physical Planning and Works
NEC
NGOs
PHP
PRC
SchEMS
SUP
SSDSC
WAFED
SWOT
UDLF
UNA
VC
VCC
VDC
WTP
vii | P a g e
Nepal Engineering College
Non - Government Organizations
Public Hearing Program
Public Relation Consultancy
School Of Environment Management and Science
Social Upliftment Program
Safeguard and Social Development Support Consultant
Water and Energy users’ Federation - Nepal
Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat
Upstream and Downstream Local Farmers
United Nation Agency
Village Committee
Village Community Committee
Village Development Committee
Water Treatment Plant
Abstract
This research study is conducted to analize the conflict management process between
Melamchi Water Supply Development Project (MWSDP) and the communities that benefit
from the water, its primary stakeholder. I selected MWSDP as a research unit because
different types of conflicts like compensation, participation and indigenous right conflicts
occurred during the project construction period. Nonetheless, all the conflicts were resolved
consequently. The information contained in this study is helpful not only to understand the
causes of conflicts but also to manage the conflicts in the project. The findings provided in
this report are basically helpful to the project manager like MWSDP to prevent and manage
the conflicts. Since Nepal has declared 2012 and 2013 as National investment years, it is
encouraging to most of the investors to assemble together a common goal to contribute the
development of the field of irrigation and hydropower. To some extent, this study can also
contribute to develop the nation by providing some knowledge to the project manager on
how to implement the development project, minimizing the risk of conflict between project
and its stakeholders. Even though most of the big conflicts in development projects are
often created between the project and its primary stakeholder, these problems can be
reduced due to the cooperation of the primary stakeholders. The same kind of scenario was
experienced in MWSDP. Therefore, this research provides a framework focusing on how to
minimize or manage the conflict by using two tools of compensation and participation and
their management processes, assessing the strength and weakness of conflict management
process at the same time. For the study I used primary data (interview and focus group
discussion) and secondary data collection method (literature review) and for the data
analysis, stakeholder analysis tool and event analysis tools were used.
The research findings show that the lack of primary stakeholder participation (lack of
information sharing) in each phase of project cycle (planning and implementation) is the
main reason for all three (compensation, participation, indigenous right) conflicts. However,
there are specific causes for each conflict. The unequal distribution, lack of community
based decision for the project and Nepal rectification on ILO convention are some major
causes of conflicts of compensation, participation and indigenous right respectively. The
conflicts of compensation were managed through negotiation and conflicts of participation
and indigenous right were managed by using the participation tool. Finally, this report ends
giving some tips to the project manager of projects like MWSDP which helps to prevent and
manage the conflicts. Some learning points include sharing of project’s information to the
project affected stakeholder and beginning of construction work only after solving the social
and economical problems.
Key words: Stakeholder, Conflict, Compensation, Participation, Collaborative Governance,
Melamchi Water Supply Development Project
viii | P a g e
Acknowledgement
First of all I would like to give my sincere gratitude to the Netherlands Fellowship
Programme (NFP) for providing me study opportunity in the Wageningen University and
Research centre, the Netherlands. Simialry, I am very much thankful to Mr. Ratna Karki,
Programme Director of Rural Reconstruction Nepal (RRN) and other staffs of it for providing
me enough support for the development of my professional career. This is also great
opportunity to gratitude my special thank to Deepa Joshi and Bert Bruins for guiding me as a
supervisor from begining of the selection of research proposal to end of the report writing.
My heartfelt gratitude also goes to Fons Jasper and Rudi Roijacker for their special
cooperation regarding my study in the university.
This research would not be possible without the cooperation of farmer from Melamchi
valley and representatives from HSMSC, MLCC and HLCC during the period of data collection
in the field. Similalry, staffs of MWSDB especially Indra Bilash Khanal and Bijayaram
Lamichhane and staffs from SSDSC Bashudev Devkota, Shiva Dhakhal and Surya Prasad Kafle
are equally thankful for providing enough information regarding my research. I am also very
much thankfull to Mr. Hari Prasad Sharma and Bharat KC ( Ex. staffs of MWSDB) for
providing their valuable time for sharing their learning experiences from the overall process
of conflict management in MWSDP. Next, I am also indebted to Deepak Karki for his
valuable time to edit my language.
I would like to express heartfelt respect and love to my parents ( Chandra Dev Karki and
Pabitra Karki) including brothers ( Rajan Karki, Rajiv Karki, Aayush Karki) and younger sisters
(Sabbu Karki and Aayushma Karki) for providing me moral support and encouragement to
do my Master’s degree in the Netherlands. I also would like to express my admiration to all
friends who supported me during study in the Netherlands.
Sangita Karki
ix | P a g e
Chapter I
INTRODUCTION
1. Introduction
This chapter provides a background to the research, outlines the problem, defines the
objectives and provides an overview of the study. This research looked at the conflict
between Melamchi Water Supply Development Board (MWSDB) and its project stakeholder
at Melamchi valley in Nepal – in relation to the Melamchi Water Supply Development
Project (MWSDP). This project is a multi- donor initiative which goal is to transfer water
from Melamchi River (Indrawati river basin) to Kathmandu (Bagmati basin) as a water
drinking supply. Because of the conflict between the primary stakeholder1 and MWSDB, the
project was not completed in 2006, as expected. The main issues for the conflict between
the two parties were compensation2, participation3, and indigenous right4 that rose during
the project construction phase. Compensation and participation were a common problem
for the entire project affected areas and the indigenous right issue was related only to the
people living in the upstream side of the Melamchi River.
In this research, I present these three issues as three different types of conflicts because
they occurred at different periods of time and were managed in different ways. Also,
because the stakeholders involved on creating and managing these conflicts were different.
Additionally, there was a concern related to a possible imposition of payment for ecosystem
services to the water users in Kathmandu, but it was not discussed in this research because
government is already taking action in this matter.
Results are presented in different chapters that give detailed information about each
conflict on the basis of time each conflict raised.
1
Primary stakeholder are those stakeholder who do not have more influencing power in the decision making process in particular project
but they are highly affected by the project. These are the people whose livelihood is affected by the particular project.
2
Compensation refers the repayment by the MWSDB to the individual whose private land or other property (plant, animal, and home) has
been lost or damaged due to the construction activities of the MWSDP. Therefore, the main stakeholder who created conflict taking the
issue of compensation is the direct affected stakeholder by the project.
3
Participation refers the involvement of primary stakeholder for the implementation of social uplfitment project (SUP) as well as
involvement+ in the decision making process. This is also one form of social compensation demanded by the primary stakeholder but in
this research I have presented it as a different issues for the easy understanding for the reader
4
According to ILO convention number 169, indigenous peoples are those whose social, cultural and economic conditions distinguish them
from other sections of the national community and whose status is regulated wholly or partially by their own customs or traditions or by
special laws or regulations, and to peoples who are regarded as indigenous on account of their descent from the populations which inhabit
the country at the time of conquest or colonization (ILO convention No. 169). In Nepal, 37.2% (59 different groups) of total population is
covered by indigenous people and out of them only 14% of total nation’s populations are in the civil society (nefin.org.np). Convention no.
169 is a legally binding international instrument which deals specifically with the rights of indigenous and tribal peoples.
1|P age
1.1 Research Background
Nepal’s population is 29.9 million, representing 0.4% of the world’s population but
possesses 2.3% of the world’s water resources (ADB, 2003). The “Water Resources Act,
1992” is the first comprehensive policy in Nepal which has prioritized the use of water the
following order (Water Resources Act, 1992):
 Drinking and domestic
 Agricultural (irrigation and animal husbandry)
 Hydropower
 Cottage industry
 Industrial enterprises
 Mining, Navigation
 Recreational use and other uses
This act has given priority to drinking and domestic water use, which indeed is a huge
problem in Nepal, especially in urban areas like Kathmandu valley. Unfortunately the
government has not been able to fulfill the water demand of city dwellers in the capital city
(Ford, 2008). Among the various alternatives to supplementing water supply in the
Kathmandu valley, the national government had long considered transfer of water from the
Melamchi River through a 26.5 Km tunnel as the best option (Pant, et al., 2008). In 1997 the
Ministry of physical planning and works (MPPW) as the execution body and (MWSDB) as the
implementation body, initiated this project with the aim of diverting 170,000 cubic meters
of water per day from the Melamchi river to Kathmandu city’s water supply network. And
for growing future needs, provisions were put in plan to divert up to three times more water
using the same source of water and infrastructure (Khatri - Chhetri, et al., 2006).
There are two major components in the MWSDP: infrastructure development and social and
environment. The first component, which is the major component of the project, includes
construction of roads, tunnel, reservoir tanks and the entire necessary infrastructure to
transfer water. The social and environmental component of the project addresses the issue
of local stakeholders and compensates to the local stakeholders for the negative impacts of
the project, especially for the loss or damages of private and social property including
natural resources. Both of these project’s components are interrelated.
The social and environment component includes four major programs: 1) environmental
management, 2) public relation, 3) land compensation, and 4) Social Upliftment Program
(SUP)5. Out of these four components, land compensation and SUP became the major
sources of conflict between MWSDB and primary stakeholders. These conflicts between
MWSDB and local stakeholders represented a serious impact on the overall plan increasing
its cost and delaying several technical components of the project (NGO Forum, 2012).
According to Bhattarai and Pant (2004), in most of the big development projects like
5
The main aim of the SUP is to engage local participation in the mitigation of direct and indirect project impacts and to create a base for
long-term development in project-affected VDCs, to improve quality of life. It has 6 different components (education, health, income
generation and community development, rural electrification and the development of buffer zone of the Langtang National Park).
2|P age
MWSDP, there are always chances of conflict between project and its stakeholders referring
to the issues of compensation. Therefore, my research study is limited only to these two
components of the project.
This type of conflicts: compensation, participation, and indigenous rights, can be solved with
the help of knowledge on why the conflict occurs and how it can be managed. I found
MWSDP a good example as a source of knowledge about these kinds of issues since the
implementation of the project resulted in a conflict, which was also subsequently addressed
or managed. Therefore, this report provides overall framework of Conflict Management
Process (CMP), useful for researchers or project development managers interested in
developing compensation strategies and primary stakeholder participation. The information
given in this chapter can be applied in any part of the nation where similar problem exist.
1.2 Problem Statement
The MWSDP is the first and the biggest water transfer project in Nepal. From the beginning
of the construction phase, it was obstructed by the project’s stakeholder in the Melamchi
valley due to the conflicts of “unsystematic distribution of compensation” and “lack of
primary stakeholder participation in project implementation and decision making process”.
Later, after addressing these two issues the indigenous people raised the issues of
indigenous right and obstructed the project during construction work. This resulted in a
delay in completing several other components and impacted the overall plan of the project,
which was possible to restore/ set back on track again with great effort. Therefore, I
selected this case of CMP for my research study to draw out the lessons from this conflict
analyzing the causes of conflict, its management process and the strengths and weaknesses
of the process.
So, the main objective of this research is to study the conflict and its management process.
As a final output, this research provides some tips to project manager on how to minimize
the conflicts using two tools of “primary stakeholder participation” and “compensation”.
The lessons that I listed from the case of MWSDP are useful for the project manager to
prepare a good plan for the implementation of projects like MWSDP and to prevent and/or
minimize conflicts between project and its stakeholder. Additionally, this report is also
useful in the present context of Nepal because the country is encouraging investors for the
development of hydropower, irrigation, information technology since 2012 has been
declared an investment year. At the same time, Nepal government it is promising that there
will be no more conflicts in the development project like in the past (Taylor, 2012). If the
development project becomes conflict-less, the higher the number of investors that will be
willing to invest towards development projects like MWSDP and ultimately contribute to the
nation’s development. In this sense, the information provided in this research is not only
helpful to project level but also contribute the overall development of the nation.
1.3 General Objective and Theoretical Framework
The general objective of the research is to draw out the lessons from the process of conflict
management that was followed by the MWSDB to solve the conflict of compensation,
participation and indigenous rights in Melamchi valley. This objective was fulfilled by
analyzing the causes of conflict, its management process and strength and weakness of
3|P age
whole management process. The following research questions were asked to achieve this
objective:
1) What are the causes of conflicts of compensation, participation and indigenous
rights in Melamchi Valley?
2) How the conflicts of compensation, participation and indigenous rights were
managed in MWSDP?
To analyze these research questions the main tools used were the stakeholder and the
event analysis tool.
1.4 Report Outline
This document consists of six chapters. The first chapter provides a background to the
research, problem statement, and the objectives of the research, and outline of the report
in the end. The second chapter provides the conceptual framework of research where the
concepts of compensation, primary stakeholder participation, indigenous right conflicts and
its management process are given. The third chapter provides the research tools and
techniques used for data collection (focus group discussion and interview) and analysis.
Chapter four provides research findings where causes of conflicts and conflicts management
processes are described. Chapter five is the section where the research findings are
discussed. It also includes the limitation and validity of research. Chapter six is the
conclusion and recommendations which briefly answer the main research questions. It also
provides a list of recommendations which are useful for project managers like MWSDP to
prevent and manage the conflict between project officials and its primary stakeholder.
4|P age
Chapter II
Theoretical Framework
2. Overview of the Chapter
This chapter demonstrates the definition of key words that are used in this report. The
major key words are issues, conflict, causes of conflict and its management process. Others
include compensation, participation, and indigenous right. This chapter also explains the
overall framework of research, including theoretical framework and research tools.
2.1 Conceptual Framework for Research Study
I used the conceptual framework of Wertheim (2012) as a basis framework to study the
overall conflict management process between MWSDB and its primary stakeholder. The
main reason of selecting this framework is that it provides clear overview about the conflict
management processes, including causes of conflicts, conflict management process and the
outcome of conflict management process. Figure 1; provides the overall framework of
conflict management process used for research study. Each concept in the boxes is
explained below.
Figure 1 Conceptual framework of Conflict Management Process (CMP)
5|P age
2.1.1 Explanation of Research Concept
This sub section explains every word those are used in this report.
1) Issues
Issues are the subject or topic of the conflict; what people discuss or fight about. In this
research, the issue of compensation, participation and indigenous right are studied because
all of these issues were developed into conflicts. Therefore, in this report each of these
issues has been considered as a three different conflicts. These are separated as a three
different conflicts because these issues were highlighted one after other (after solving the
one issue) and the conflict management process also differ with each other.
2) Conflict
A conflict or negotiation in any project is the situation where there is a conflict of interests
or what one wants aren’t necessarily what the other wants and where both sides prefer to
search for solutions, rather than giving in or breaking-off contact (Wertheim, 2012). And,
the conflict that needs resolution is neither good nor bad because conflict might have both
constructive and destructive outcome (Ohlendorf, 2011; Wertheim, 2012). Therefore, every
person or project manager has to try to manage the conflict rather than suppressing the
conflict. According to Wertheim (2012) and Ohlendorf (2011) conflict can play a productive
or constructive role for both personal and professional relationships. Constructive conflict
occurs when people change and grow personally from the conflict, involvement of
individuals affected by the conflict is increased, cohesiveness is formed among conflicting
parties and a solution to problem is found. Whereas, destructive conflict occurs when a
decision has not been found and the problem remains, energy is taken away from more
important activities or issues, when morale or individual is destroyed, and groups of people
or teams are polarized (Ohlendorf, 2011). The project manager or conflict resolution
manager should understand the three major roles described below to manage the
unproductive conflict (Ohlendorf, 2011).
a) Persecutor is an individual who uses destructive actions against another person,
attacking (direct or indirect and be physical, verbal or both) the intended victim.
b) Victim is individual who uses nonassertive behavior so others view them as “I am not
Okay” This behavior encourage others to either rescue or persecute the victim.
Victims will feel helpless, inadequate, sad, scared or guilty. The victim role is often
used because the individual is feeling stressed, has low self esteem, or is being
persecuted by another;
c) Rescuer refers to a person who uses either nonassertive or aggressive behavior.
The conflict is a continuous process which never ends during the different phase of project
cycle. Therefore, every project worker and the person should have knowledge and skill on
how to manage the conflict for professional and personal development. The conflict can be
seen from both the constructive and destructive point of view but one good conflict
manager often view conflict as an opportunity to improve the existing situation by building
new relation with the opposing party and making favorable environment for working for all
of the team members in the project. The project manager or members of conflict resolution
should understand the role of conflicting parties for settling the conflict easily.
6|P age
3) Causes of Conflict
Wertheim (2012) has stated that the conflicts occur because of involvement of opposing
interests or parties in particular project. Nowadays, the possibility of occurrence of conflict
has been increased in those organization where new modern management structure has
been adopted, for instance, the participation of civil society or project stakeholder in
particular project increases the possibility of conflict because of more numbers of parties
are involved. Wertheim (2012) has given some major causes of conflicts which may occur
because of
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
competition over scarce resources and time
differences in perceptions, work styles, attitudes, communication problems,
individual differences
increasing interdependence as boundaries between individuals and groups become
increasingly blurred
differentiation: division of labor which is the basis for any organization causes people
and groups to see situations differently and have different goals
The concept of equity (the belief that we should be rewarded relative to our relative
contributions) and equality (belief that everyone should receive the same or similar
outcomes) (Wertheim, 2012)
These factors can be the cause of conflict between two parties. Therefore, such factors
should be taken into account by the project manger or conflict resolutions team to
minimize, prevent and manage the conflicts. The conflict does not solve for long run until
the root causes of conflict does not addressed. Therefore, for the long term solution,
understanding about the causes of conflict is most essential part. Therefore, in this research,
I have analyzed the strength and weakness of the conflict management process based on
the ability of conflict management process to address the root causes of conflicts. The next
indicator used for analyzing the strength and weakness of the conflict management process
is the outcome/ impact of conflict management process.
4) The Five Modes of Responding to Conflict
Wertheim (2012) has been described five (competition, collaboration, compromising,
avoiding and accommodating) different modes of conflict resolution. Out of these five
modes of conflict resolution, none of them are “right" or "wrong" because the selections of
particular modes of conflict resolution depend on the two major dimensions which are I)
how important or unimportant it is to satisfy our needs and ii) how important or
unimportant it is to satisfy the other person's needs. And, based on these dimensions,
conflict resolution team in any project can follow any of the modes of conflict resolution
given below:
a) Competition: Distributive (win-lose) bargaining: If satisfying your needs is
important and satisfying the other's needs isn't important
b) Collaboration: Integrative (win-win): if satisfying need of both (your and
other) is important
7|P age
c) Compromising: If satisfying both your needs and the other's are moderately
important
d) Avoiding: when you are unconcerned about satisfying either your needs or
the other's needs
e) Accommodating: it doesn't matter to you and it matters to the other person
These five modes of conflict resolution can be followed if conflict already exists and if there
is the possibility of conflict in future. In case if there is already conflict in particular project,
the other approaches such as hierarchy (the boss decides), bureaucratic approaches (rules,
procedures), integrators and third-party intervention, negotiation and interdependent
tasks can be followed (Wertheim, 2012). In concluding the conflict management process
followed by MWSDB, I have analyzed the conflict management process comparing with
these different modes of conflict resolution.
5) The Outcome of Conflict
The conflict is considered neither good nor bad because it can have both positive and
negative outcome (Wertheim, 2012). The outcome of the conflict provided by the Wertheim
(2012) has been given below in table 1.
Table 1 Positive and negative outcome of conflict
Potential Positive Outcomes of Conflict







Can motivate to try harder-to "win"
can increase commitment, enhance
group loyalty
increased clarity about the problem
can
lead
to
innovative
breakthroughs and new approaches
conflict can clarify underlying
problems, facilitate change
can focus attention on basic issues
and lead to solution
involvement in conflict can sharpen
our approaches to bargaining,
influencing, competing
Potential Negative Outcomes of Conflict




can lead to anger, avoidance, sniping,
shouting, frustration, fear of failure,
sense of personal inadequacy
withholding of critical information
lower productivity from wasteful
conflict
consume huge amount of time-loss of
productivity
(Wertheim, 2012)
In my research I have also assessed the conflict management process based on the outcome
provided by conflict management process.
2.1.2 Definition of Key Words
In this subsection different key words use in the research are explained.
8|P age
1) Issue of Compensation
In this research study, compensation is defined as a repayment for those primary
stakeholder who losses private property because of project’s activities. The project has
divided primary stakeholder into two categories; direct affected and indirect affected
stakeholder. The stakeholder who created the conflict taking the issue of compensation is
the primary stakeholder. In this research, compensation represents the financial
compensation for the loss or damage of the private property such as land and house
including plants, animals and other assets.
a) Principles of Compensation Plan
According to the FAO (2008), compensation plan should be well prepared and implemented
to prevent the possibility of conflict between project affected stakeholder and project
officials. Compensation should be determined based on the principle of equity and
equivalence so that the property owners should neither enrich nor impoverished as a result
of the compensation. The following are major five characters or principles of good
compensation plan (FAO, 2008).
i) Equivalence, the compensation should not be more than the damaged or lost
property and should not be less than the lost or damaged property
ii) Balance of interests, the process should safeguard the rights of people who lose
ownership or use rights of their land while ensuring that the public interest is not
jeopardized.
iii) Flexibility, the law should be very specific to give clear guidelines but in special cases
law should be also flexible whenever needed to determine the equivalent
compensation. This flexibility is necessary because legislators cannot foresee all of
the possible scenarios that might come during project implementation.
iv) Compensation should also address both de facto (no legal prove but emotional) and
de jure (in fact) rights in an equitable manner. This means even If the land occupant
do not have legal documents or right to claim for the compensation, they should
have get compensation for all of the assets that are produced in land. They should
also entitle to resettlement assistance. Further, if there is some person or family who
is living without permission from the land owner (squatters) should also get some
form of payment.
v) Fairness and transparency, negotiating powers between the land acquiring agency
and project affected stakeholder should be equal level. Negotiations should be based
on an open exchange of information (FAO, 2008 p. 23).
I have compared these five principles with the research findings and compensation policy of
MWSDB to analyze the strength and weakness of compensation policy and plan.
b) Causes of unfair compensation
There are some factors which can lead unfair compensation among the project affected
stakeholder which ultimately make compensation plan ineffective. Some of the major
factors given in FAO (2008) are;
9|P age
i) Unclear laws and regulations, can lead to poorly-implemented procedures,
inequitable compensation and even conflict. These unclear guidelines may also
erode public faith in governance and the rule of law, and increase project costs.
ii) Lack of legal rights (documents) to the land, if the person or family does not have
proper documents to claim for the land compensation, equivalent compensation is
difficult to determine.
iii) Lack of negotiating power, skill and experience the land owner may lack negotiation
skill and then he/she can quickly decide whatever is offer by the land acquiring
agency. The rich and elite person in the society can afford professional advice but
the poor are likely to be affected more in such case.
iv) A lack of standards and good governance, there is possibility to compensate more
for those person or family who offer bribes to the corrupt officials
v) Lack of skill valuator quantifying the economic loss is easy but the quantifying the
value of religious, historical or cultural claims to the land in monetary term is
difficult. Additionally the shortage of skill valuator can increase the time required to
complete the work. Similarly, the criteria fixation for valuation of the land may be
difficult in some places where market does not exist or just developing.
vi) Flash of news about the project, the News of the project may affect the market value
of the land. Therefore, basis of compensation should be stated very clearly in the
legislation. If there is no clear legislation, there are chances of inequitable low
compensation if values of land fall and inequitable high compensation and greater
costs to the government if values rise.
vii) lack of cheap process of Appeals: the appeals process are expensive, so, only rich
family can use it to acquire the reasonable compensation but the poor often has to
accept the offer whatever the land acquiring agency offer even in the case of
inadequate compensation.
2) Issue of Participation
in this research, participation represents the involvement of primary stakeholder in the
planning, designing and implementation of Social Upliftment project (SUP) components and
other components of MWSDB. The stakeholder those raised the conflict of participation are
both direct and indirect affected stakeholder of MWSDB. The stakeholder participation
model given by Blackman (2003) is used to differentiate the stakeholder participation level
between conflict creation phase and management phase.
a)
Importance of stakeholder identification
Stakeholder is defined as any group of people, organized or unorganized, who share a
common interest or stake in a particular issue or system (Grimble and Wellard, 1996).
Further, stakeholder also includes those people or individual who have power to control
the use of resources and those with no influence but whose livelihoods are affected by
changing the use of resources (Brown, et al., 2001). Thus, stakeholders in MWSDP are
individuals, community, political leaders, representative from any kind of government and
non- government organizations and/ or institutions who keep their interest and concern in
the MWSDP project. It also includes those entity and/ or people who are affected by the
10 | P a g e
project. Stakeholder can be named in terms of area/ boundary, people, profession and
organization analyzing the associated interest and the intensity of being affected by the
MWSDP. According to Blackman (2003), stakeholder in any development project can
include following stakeholders
i) User groups, people who uses the services or resources in an area
ii) Interest groups, people who have an interest in, an opinion about, or who can affect
the use of , a resource or service
iii) Beneficiaries of the project or Project affected stakeholder ( direct and indirect)
iv) Decision makers
v) Those often excluded from the decision making process (the stakeholder of particular
project is not only those who involve or shout in the meeting or other place and time
but include those who are silence due to age, gender, ethnicity).
If stakeholders are not identified and included well at the project planning stage, the project
is at risk of failure. This is because the project cannot take into account the needs and aims
of those who will come into contact with it (Blackman, 2003 p. 21).
b)
Different level of stakeholder participation
According to Blackman (2003), there are five different level of participation (see figure two).
The higher level of primary stakeholder participation increases the chances of success of the
project. In figure two, the level of participation given in upper part represent the highest
level of participation and lower parts represent the less participation. The lowest level
stakeholder participation can be considered as an involvement rather than the participation
(Blackman, 2003). The different levels of stakeholder participation are given in figure two
below the middle arrow and the explanation about each level of participation have been
given just opposite side of each participation level. For example, cooperation/ partnership,
is the second highest level of participation where two or more stakeholders share in
decision making and the management of the activity.
11 | P a g e
Figure 2 Stakeholder participation level based on Blackman (2003)
c) Importance of stakeholder participation
The project planning or cycle is the on-going process, which involves learning by reflecting
and acting. The figure three shows the four major steps (identification, design,
implementation and evaluation) of project cycle. The project is made for providing benefits
to the particular community. Therefore, in every step of project cycle, project should be
plan and implement with the participatory approach involving primary stakeholder and
secondary stakeholder to meet the objective of project (Blackman, 2003). The different level
of primary stakeholder participation6 in different phase of project cycle is essential to make
any project conflict less or success.
In a big development project like MWSDP, the people’s involvement (participation) in every
phase of the project cycle is essential to implement the project successfully or without any
obstacle during project implementation phase. Active participation is likely to have multiple
benefits, although it is not guarantee of project success (Blackman, 2003, p. 26). The
6
According to Blackman (2003) stakeholder can be categorized as a primary and secondary stakeholder in particular project. Primary
stakeholder, are those individuals or community who benefit from, or are adversely affected by, the project and its activity. The livelihood of
this kind of stakeholder may be dependent on a resource or service or area (e.g. a forest) that the project addresses. Primary stakeholders are
usually vulnerable. Similarly, Secondary stakeholder includes all other people and institutions with an interest in the resources or area being
considered.
12 | P a g e
people’s participation in project planning, decision making and implementation phase help
to achieve the goal of project through following seven major.
i) Improved effectiveness; participation of local stakeholder increased the ownership
of the project
ii) Enhanced responsiveness; if people participate at the project planning stage, the
project is more likely to target effort and inputs at perceived needs.
iii) Improved efficiency; if local knowledge and skills are drawn on, the project is more
likely to be good quality, stay within budget, and finish on time. Mistake can be
avoided and disagreement.
iv) Improved sustainability and sustainable impact; More people are committed to
carrying on the activity after outside support has stopped.
v) Empowerment and increased self-reliance; active participation helps to develop skill
and confidence amongst beneficiaries
vi) Improved transparency and accountability; because stakeholder are given
information and decision making power
vii) Improved equity; if the needs, interest and abilities of the stakeholder are taken into
account
All of these 7 benefits prove that active participation of local people invites lots of benefits
to the project and its beneficiaries. In the MWSDP, I have analysed the level of primary
stakeholder participation in three different phases (identification, design and
implementation) of project cycle.
Figure 3 Project Cycle given by Blackman (2003)
13 | P a g e
2.2 Indicators Used for the Research
These sub section describes the indicators used for analyzing the overall conflict
management process in MWSDP.
2.2.1 Indicators for Conflict Analysis
Conflict is the condition when small issue limited in particular area spread to big area and
become the subject of discussion for everyone. Thereafter, such issue needs to be
addressed by the responsible authority to settle down the conflict”. The small issue can
transform into conflict when it is not addressed by the concerned member or person or
authority within certain timeframe. In the MWSDP, primary stakeholder raised three
different issues and each of those issues was developed into conflicts. This means, the
issues which were limited only to particular groups of stakeholder spread into the bigger
masses and able to impact the MWSDP activities. Therefore, the major indicators those are
used for analyzing the conflict’s activities are type of issues, impact of issues on different
level (national level or local level), tools used for issue addressing (conflict management),
type of stakeholders involved for the CMP and time duration taken from conflict creation to
conflict management process.
2.2.2 Indicators for Analysis of Causes of Conflicts
Causes of conflict were analyzed by assessing those factors which had triggered to
transform the existing issues into conflicts. In this research, such factors are separated as an
external and internal. External factor include those external agency, event, person, process,
causes which resulted the issue transformation into conflict. The internal factors include
those causes which contributed to transform issue into conflict due to internal
characteristics of the project such as weakness of project management and behavior and
attitude of project staffs and primary stakeholder both.
2.2.3 Indicators for Conflict Management Process
Conflict Management Process was analyzed by assessing the conflict management tools and
stakeholders those were involved for conflict management. Other indicator used for conflict
management process are noticeable events occurred in different period of time from
conflict creation to conflict management phase.
2.2.4 Strength and Weakness of Conflict Management Process
The strength and weakness is analyzed based on the positive and negative outcome of the
conflict management process. These are also analyzed based on the ability of conflict
management process to address the root causes of conflicts.
2.2.5 Learning
Learning is extracted analyzing the causes of conflicts, their management process and
analyzing the strength and weakness of the conflict management process to address the
root causes of conflicts.
14 | P a g e
Chapter III
Research Methodology
3. Research Methods
This chapter describe the materials and methods used for the data collection and analysis. I
collected the primary data from research area by using semi - structured questionnaire from
the project’s official, representative from local concerned committees and political leaders.
Similarly, focus groups discussion was conducted to collect data from primary stakeholder.
The data was collected in July and August, 2012 so people were busy with their farming
activities but those people whom I met gave enough time for the data collection. I collected
primary data in two major steps. Those steps include identification of stakeholder and
collection of data from primary stakeholdeder. Likewise, the secondary data was collected
from national newspaper, progress report of the project and report of local concerned
committees. The desk study was conducted for the data analysis where different types of
tools such as stakeholder analysis tool, event analysis tool and process analysis tool have
used for the data analysis. The result is presented in Chapter four.
The methodological design for the research was based on a qualitative approach to get a
holistic view of causes of conflict and its management process in MWSDP. According to
Denzin & Lincoln (1994) qualitative research is an interdisciplinary and multi-method
approach, which provides naturalistic and interpretive perspectives of social actors and their
experiences to understand the social phenomena. As an initial step, a stakeholder analysis
was done to map the stakeholders involved in the conflict management process to solve the
conflict between MWSDB and local stakeholders in Melamchi valley. A semi-structured
questionnaire was constructed and pre-tested to assure clear understanding of all
questions. Interviews with the different categories of stakeholders (officials from
government and non government agencies, consultants, political leaders, past workers) and
focus group discussion with farmers and teacher groups involved the main research
method. Additionally, literature study was done to get knowledge on CMP in development
project like MWSDP.
3.1 Location of the Research Area
The MWSDP is located in Kathmandu and Sindhupalchowk district, in the central region of
Nepal. The intake site is located in the upper part of the Melamchi River basin which is 1 km
from the Dorin Village and about 0.5 km from the Ghwakang village at an elevation of 1425
m.a.s.l. (melamchiwater.org.php). The project area extends from the intake at Melamchi
river of Sindhupalchowk district to its opening at Sundarijal, about 14 km north-east of
Kathmandu city. Although the major project area of the MWSDP is located in Kathmandu
and Sindhupalchowk District, this research covers only the area of Melamchi valley in the
Sindhupalchowk district (Figure 4). It can be accessed by road from Kathmandu taking the
15 | P a g e
Araniko Highway near Lamidanda. Another way to access is from Kathmandu, using the road
from Jorpati to Sundarijal and from Sundarijal to the tunnel downstream portal.
According to the Annual Progress Report of MWSDB, 2008), fourteen different Village
Development Committees (VDCs): Helambu, Kiul, Ichowk, Palchowk, Dubachaur, Mahankal,
Talamarang, Thakani, Haibung Bhotechaur, Sindhukot, Bansbari, Fataksila and Melamchi
have been considered as a project affected (directly and indirectly) VDCs. Sindhupalchowk
district has altogether 79 VDCs.
Figure 4 Area Coverage of MWSDP (Khatri- Chhetri, et al., 2006, p. 19)
The Primary data for this research were collected only from the Helambu and Melamchi
VDCs. These two VDCs were selected after sharing my research objectives with the officials
of Safeguard and Social Development Support Consultant (SSDSC) of MWSDP in site office in
Melamchi valley and the following two main reasons: Helambu VDC is in upstream area of
the Melamchi River and Melamchi VDC is in the downstream area. Therefore, combinations
of data collected from both of these areas represent all of the social and economical issues
of Melamchi valley related to the “compensation”, “participation” and “indigenous right”.
This gives overall history of conflict of “compensation”, “participation” including indigenous
right and their management process in Melamchi valley.
As mentioned above MWSDP has categorized 14 different VDCs as a project affected
stakeholders. And, out of these 14 VDCs, stakeholders have been categorized into two
groups: 1) Indirectly affected stakeholders include those person or family who do not loss
their property directly but they have possibility to suffer from changing the existing system
16 | P a g e
of local socio-cultural and natural environment. 2) Directly affected stakeholders, those
person or family who are directly affected by project’s construction work and other
activities. For example, stakeholders who lost the private property by the road and tunnel
construction activities are categorized into direct affected stakeholders. Therefore,
stakeholder who raised the conflict of “compensation” is directly affected stakeholder and
those who raised the conflict of “participation” are direct and indirectly affected
stakeholder. The stakeholder who raised the conflict of indigenous right is the indigenous
community especially Hyolmo, living in upstream side of Melamchi river. Therefore, these
three different categories of stakeholders are the main source of conflicts in MWSDP from
whom data were collected for getting fact information.
3.2 Stakeholder Identification
In the beginning of my field visit, I consulted 2 educational institutions, School of
Environment Management and Science (SchEMS) and Nepal Engineering College (NEC) and
one Non- Government Organization (NGO) named Asian Center for Environment
management and Sustainable Development (AEMS) in the capital city of Kathmandu, to seek
their advice on understanding stakeholders involved in the MWSDP in Melamchi valley.
Before starting the information collection, I discussed with these organizations and
prepared a stakeholders map which provided an inventory of important stakeholders. All of
these organizations provided support in giving contact information about stakeholders for
interviews. I reached to Melamchi valley and contacted with the head of site office of
MWSDB and he recommended me to meet the representative from the Social Safeguard
Development Support Consultant (SSDSC) for detail information. Thereafter, I visited to
SSDSC, shared my research objective with staffs and identified the main stakeholders of my
research project. SSDC staff members suggested me to select 2 VDCs out of the 14 affected
VDCs for the data collection because, the conflict of “compensation” and “participation”
were common conflicts and the reasons of conflict was almost the same in all affected VDCs.
Similarly the conflict of indigenous right was only related to the indigenous community,
Hyolmo who are living upstream side of the Melamchi River. Therefore, I selected 2 VDCs
one from upstream (Helambu) and 1 from downstream (Melamchi) to cover all of the issues
those were raised by the primary stakeholder of MWSDP. The diverse groups of local and
national stakeholders those were explored through stakeholder analysis from SSDSC are:
1)
Central Level Stakeholder
a) Ministry of Physical Planning and Works (MPPW), Kathmandu
b) Melamchi Water Supply Development Board (MWSDB), Kathmandu
2)
District Level Stakeholder
a) Melamchi Water Supply Development Board (MWSDB), Melamchi Valley
b) Safeguard and Social Development Support Consultant (SSDSC)
17 | P a g e
3)
Local Level Stakeholder
a) Hyolmo-Sindhu-Melamchi Valley Social Uplift Program Implementation Committee
(HSMC)
b) Hyolmo Local Concerned Committee(HLCC)
c) Melamchi Local Concerned Committee (MLCC), 2052 (1995)
d) Local Farmers from Melamchi VDC and Helambu VDC
e) Local Political Leaders from Different Parties
f) Schools
g) Others (fisherman/watermill owners)
3.3 Data Collection Methods
The Semi – structured interviews and focus group discussion are the two major tools of
primary data collections. These two methods have been described below. There were
altogether 13 interviewees and 7 group discussions.
3.3.1 Semi-structured Interviews
As a second step of the research, a semi-structured interview was conducted with the
stakeholders listed during stakeholder analysis. A semi structured questionnaire was used
for the interview to get familiar with the experiences of stakeholders about causes of
conflict, process of conflict management and outcome of conflict management process.
These research questions were asked with both parties i.e. MWSDP and primary
stakeholders from different socio-economic background of different occupations.
There are altogether 13 numbers of interviewees, out of them 3 numbers were from
political parties, 2 from different concerned Committees (MLCC and HLCC) and 1 local NGO,
HSMC, was consulted for the interview. Similarly, 2 people from MWSDB, Melamchi and 2
people from MWSDB, Kathmandu, 2 people from SSDSC consultant and 1 member from
MPPW were interviewed. The 2 people or interviewees who were involved directly in the
conflict management process from MWSDB (Bharat KC and Hari Prasad Sharma) took more
than 1 hour. Similarly, same time was taken to take interview with the local representatives
from MLCC and HSMC those were involved in the conflict creation and management
process. The interview was started with some neutral questions to build rapport with
interviewees. Instead of going through each question, an amenable discussion environment
was created to express their experiences, especially in the case of farmer group discussion.
18 | P a g e
Figure 5 Interview with Ex. ED (Bharat KC), MWSDB
3.3.2 Focus Group Discussion (FGD)
Four focus groups (more than eight members in each group) were consulted for group
discussion from farmer side, one group discussion was consulted with fisherman, and 2
groups of school teachers were consulted and discussed. The duration of each group
discussion was about 1 hour, depending upon information required and interviewee’s
energy to participate actively in the discussion. Most of the interviewees expressed warm
welcome and participated actively in the group discussion. The interviews were recorded.
Figure 6 Group discussion with teacher in Melamchi
3.4 Data Analysis Methods
This sub section gives information for methods of data analysis. The main analysis tool
includes stakeholder analysis, event analysis and demand analysis. The stakeholder analysis
tools is used as major tool for assessing all of three conflicts because identification of
stakeholder and their interest are the essential part of study of each conflict. The
19 | P a g e
stakeholder analysis tool is used to identify those stakeholders involved in the conflict
creation and management phase.
3.4.1 Stakeholder Analysis for Compensation Study
The stakeholder analysis tool given by de Groot, Stuip et al. (2006) is used to find out the
conflict management process of conflict of “compensation” in Melamchi valley. I have used
this tool because this is a useful tool for identifying stakeholders and describing their roles
and interests involved in the conflict management process. It also helps to identify and
categorize the stakeholders based on their influencing power on decision making process
and assessing the conflict management process of conflict of compensation. The major
steps I have used for the stakeholder analysis to understand the conflict management
process (conflict of compensation) are;
1) Identification of stakeholder those were involved in the conflict creation and
conflict management
2) Identification of their role and their position in managing the conflict
3.4.2 Stakeholder and Event Analysis for Participation Study
I have used the stakeholder and event analysis tools to find out the conflict management
process of conflict of “Participation”. The steps for analyzing the conflict management
process are;
1) Identification of different events occurred in different periods of time
2) Identification of the stakeholders who were involved in the conflict creation and
management phase
3) Analysis the process of participation
4) Differentiate the “primary stakeholder participation” (PPP) level in MWSDP
before and after addressing the issues of participation. The PPP level was
categorized based on the PPP level with Blackman (2003).
3.4.3 The Event and Demand Analysis for Indigenous Right Study
The events occurred in the conflict creation phase and management phase were analyzed.
Similarly, the demand of Hyolmo was also analyzed. The steps taken for analyzing the
conflict of indigenous right and its management process are the same as in steps given
under sub sections 3.4.2 except 3 and 4.
3.4.4. Assessment of Strength and Weakness of CMP for Recommendation
Strength and weakness have been identified by analyzing the conflict management process
itself and analyzing the existing impact of the solution provided by the MWSDB to settle
down the conflict of compensation, participation and indigenous rights. Finally, based on
the weakness and strength of the conflict management process, I have provided some lists
of learning (knowledge) that need to be considered by the project manager to make any
type of development project conflict less, which meets the general objective of this research
study.
20 | P a g e
Chapter IV
Research Result
4. Overview of the Chapter
This chapter describes the research findings which are basically separated into three major
subsections. These subsections include stakeholder identification, causes of conflicts and
conflicts management processes.
4.1 Stakeholder Identification and their Interest
I have separated stakeholder basically in three categories; central level stakeholder, district
level stakeholder and local level stakeholder. The figure 7 shows the major stakeholder that
is related to the MWSDP. The brief descriptions about these stakeholders have been
described below.
Figure 7 Stakeholder involved in CMP
4.1.1 Central Level Stakeholder
There are two major offices in central level: 1) Ministry of Physical Planning and Works
(MPPW), Kathmandu 2) Melamchi Water Supply Development Board (MWSDB), Kathmandu
1) Ministry of Physical Planning and Works (MPPW), Kathmandu
The MPPW is the executive agency of MWSDP. This agency makes policy and plan for the
MWSDP and implements this through MWSDB. I asked to the Ex. Executive Director (ED),
21 | P a g e
MR. Hari Prasad Sharma, who had involved in contribution to settle down the conflict of
“compensation”, “participation” and “indigenous rights”. He shared his overall history of
conflict in MWSDP including conflict of compensation, participation and indigenous right.
Figure 8 interview with Bharat KC (Ex. Deputy Director of MWSDB)
2) Melamchi Water Supply Development Board (MWSDB), Kathmandu
The MWSDB is the office of Executive Director (ED). It is a commission under Ministry of
Physical Planning and Works (MPPW) which is responsible for the implementation of
MWSDP. It aims to supply water to the Kathmandu valley diverting water from the
Melamchi River. Water diversion weir of Melamchi Diversion Scheme lies downstream of
the Melamchi Ghyang village. While I contacted, the Executive Director (ED) of MWSDB, he
suggested me to talk to the people who are already working in the site office of Melamchi
valley, since he was new in that office.
4.1.2 District Level Stakeholder
In District level or in Melamchi valley, I found two major stakeholders:
1) Melamchi Water Supply Development Board (MWSDB), Melamchi Valley
MWSDB is located in Melamchi valley which has two major (Social Safeguard unit and
engineering) project components. When I talked to the Senior Engineer, Indrabilash Khanal,
he informed me that he was new in that office. So he called Engineer Mr. Bijayaram
Lamichhane, who had been working from the beginning, in his room to provide me the
detail information regarding the project in the past. He helped me to understand the
problem.
2) Safeguard and Social Development Support Consultant (SSDSC)
SSDSC is the consultant responsible to implement the major activities like support to
safeguard, social upliftment program, environmental monitoring, public relation and
resettlement. Mr. Shiva Prasad Dhakal, resettlement officer from the SSDSC and Mr. Kamal
Dumre, Public Grievance Officer, helped me to finalize my research questionnaire and also
provided me information related to my research. It was like a discussion than formal
interview. I got the required information on different issues such as causes of conflict of
compensation and participation, process of conflict management, outcome of the conflict
22 | P a g e
management process and his opinion regarding outcomes, impact of those outcomes for
different stakeholders, etc.
Figure 9 Interview with Public Relation Officer, SSDSC
4.1.3 Local Level Stakeholder
1) Local Committees
I asked the Local committees personnel about the overall history of conflict from its creation
to its implementation phase. These are the stakeholders who created the conflict and also
involved in the conflict management process. These committees are HSMC, HLCC and MLCC.
These committees were the primary stakeholder of MWSDP. All of the issues of primary
stakeholder raised from MWSDP were taken formally by these committees to the office.
a) HSMC
Hyolmo-Sindhu-Melamchi Valley Social Uplift Program Implementation Committee (HSMC)
is the community based organization which represents all of the 14 VDCs of project affected
area. It is responsible to implement the Social Upliftment Program (SUP). Project officer
explained me the history of HSMC in detail. This organization is in Melamchi valley.
Figure 10 interview with Secretary of HSMC, MWSDB
b) Hyolmo Local Concerned Committee (HLCC)
23 | P a g e
Hyolmo Local Concerned Committee (HLCC) was formally registered in February 3, 2009 to
solve the local level problems made by MWSDP. It represents the Helambu VDC only. This
community is living nearby the water diversion scheme which is the upstream inhabitants of
Melamchi River. I asked Urgen Lama (president of committee and also local political leader)
and Pasang Lama (Ex. President and Political Leader) for the interview from this committee.
In the Helambu VDC, Most of the inhabitants are Hyolmo who are categorized as an
indigenous community in Nepal.
c) Melamchi Local Concerned Committee (HLCC)
The Melamchi Local Concerned Committee (MLCC) was formed in the time of road
surveying and designing phase to solve local issues related to compensation in Melamchi
valley. This group was formed in September 6, 1995. In the project construction phase,
contractor started to work haphazardly without caring private properties; meanwhile this
group became more active and stand against the construction. They raised a voice to solve
the issues not only related to compensation but also other issues such as environmental and
social issues. According to the leader of this group Mr. Balkrishna Deuja (president of the
committee and local political leader), this committee was established in local people rights
based approach to solve the problems of Melamchi valley made by MWSDP. This is the
committee where all of the committee members were working as volunteers. Nowadays,
this committee is not active like before.
d) Local Farmers from Melamchi VDC and Helambu VDC
All of the farmers from 14 projects affected VDCs of MWSDP are primary stakeholder but in
this research these stakeholders are represented by the farmers from Melamchi and
Helambu VDCs only. In fact, these farmers were not involved directly in the conflict creation
and management phase but their issues and concerns were taken formally to the project
office through the local committees.
e) Local Political Leaders from Different Parties
I asked to the local political leaders if some of them tried to influence the decision making
process for their own benefits from conflict creation phase to conflict management phase.
There were three main political leaders from three different parties but all of them told that
they were also equally participated as farmers because they also belong to that local area.
Those local leaders were invited by the MWSDB to manage and settle down the conflicts.
They played a mediator role between MWSDB and the primary stakeholder.
f) Schools Teachers
I asked some questions to the school teachers to know whether they were asked to be
involved in the conflict management process or not. I wanted to know their view regarding
the solution proposed by the MWSDB, since teachers are supposed to be the one of the
most educated group in the society.
g) Others (fisherman/watermill owners)
There are other two major categories of stakeholder who are affected by the MWSDP.
These stakeholders include fisherman and watermill owners. Fishermen are those who
involved for the fishing activities since a decade ago to sustain their livelihood. Watermill
24 | P a g e
owners are those people who have traditional machinery to grind food grains and get some
money or food from other farmers living in particular area.
4.1.4 Causes of Conflicts
The stakeholders involved in three different conflicts were different.
 Stakeholders directly affected by the project construction activities are the main
source of conflict of compensation.
 Stakeholders directly and indirectly affected by the project are the main source of
conflict of participation.
 Stakeholders living in upstream side of the Melamchi River and belong to the
indigenous communities are the main source of conflict of indigenous rights.
In this research, I found two major reasons of conflicts which encouraged project affected
stakeholders to convert small issues of compensation, participation and indigenous right
into big matter in the form of conflict. The external causes and some of the internal causes
for all of three conflicts are common. Some of the internal causes are specific to each
conflict.
1) External Causes of Conflicts
There are two types of external factors which helped to develop the issues of compensation,
participation, and indigenous rights into three different conflicts. These two external factors
are: support of external agency to the primary stakeholder and unstable government.
a) External Support by WAFED and MEDIA
From discussions from focal groups, I found that some of the local stakeholders got
information regarding national and international scheme of compensation, participation and
indigenous rights from the Water and Energy User’s Federation (WAFED Nepal) 7. A Lawyer
named “Gopal Chintan” organized a campaign about an awareness program in the
Melamchi valley. The WAFED Nepal organized an orientation training to empower primary
stakeholder to fight for their rights and also helped to advocate at a ministry level taking
three different issues that were raised by the primary stakeholder of the project.
b) Unstable Government and Frequent Changes of Staffs in MWSDB
MWSDB staff during the project implementation changed frequently because of the political
instability. These changes triggered each of these conflicts and resulted in changes in the
project management strategy, delayed in distribution of compensation and implementation
of other projects. Stakeholders were also affected by these changes because they did not
get the compensation what was agreed with previous staffs. As a result, the perception of
primary stakeholder towards the project’s officials became negative and resulted in one of
the major causes of conflict between MWSDB and primary stakeholders.
7
WAFED is an independent national network of people affected by water and energy projects as well as of
local concerned groups in Nepal. Some of its members are individual activists engaged in the field of human
rights, environment, development and climate change in Nepal and internationally.
25 | P a g e
2) Internal Causes of Conflicts
Internal factors include: weaknesses in the project management and behavior or internal
character of the primary stakeholders (direct and indirect affected).
a) Project’s weakness in planning and management
I have found six major reasons for this matter.
i) Beginning of construction work without solving social issues
The project construction work was started without solving all the socio-economic issues of
primary stakeholder. They were raising different kind of social and environmental issues
associated with the MWSDP but those issues were not given attention by the project
officials. For example, the primary stakeholders were not satisfied with the compensation
provided by the MWSDB, again, project construction activities were started ignoring their
issues as a result conflict occurred during project construction phase (interview, 2012).
ii) lack of information sharing to the primary stakeholder
The information about the compensation, determination and distribution was not well
informed to the project affected stakeholder. Similarly, the Social Upliftment Project (SUP)
was implemented by the MWSDP coordinating with the DDC but many of the primary
stakeholders did not known about it. Primary stakeholder wanted to get some social and
community benefits from the project because they were being affected by the construction
activities of MWSDP. Therefore, some of the stakeholders who did not known about the
SUP were involved to create conflict of participation (interview, 2012).
iii) The project’s staff failed to address the public issue
This project was initiated in 1997 and since that time, primary stakeholders were
demanding appropriate land and social compensation. They were raising issue of their
participation in project implementation and decision level and also raised the issues of
indigenous rights. The project officials promised to address their demands in the public
hearing meeting in 1998 (Pant & Samad, 2006) but did not address until project construction
work was obstructed by the primary stakeholder.
iv) Cooperation within and outside the project affected VDCs
MWSDB provided compensation based on the Resettlement policy of MWSDB and some of
them were unhappy with the compensation policy. The unhappy stakeholders formed a
group and cooperate with each other to make their voice listened by the office staffs.
Similarly, to make their issues of participation and indigenous right heard by the office
staffs, different groups worked together and raised those issues collectively.
v) Attitude and behavior of primary stakeholder
The behavior and attitude of primary stakeholder is also one of the major causes of
conflicts. The primary stakeholders wanted to take more social and financial benefits. They
know that without their cooperation and support, MWSDP will not become a success
(interview, 2012). Therefore, they raised different cases because of their negative attitude
26 | P a g e
and behavior towards the project. They created problems because of their money guided
mind. Following are some of the examples they did to create conflicts;
 Some stakeholders claimed compensation without legal documents
 Some claimed repeated compensation
 Some stakeholders wanted to change the road design to get compensation
and future benefits
 Some of the stakeholders had the feeling that if they obstruct the project
construction, their demand will be fulfilled
 Some of the stakeholders had the feeling that compensation should be given
at a higher than normal rate because of the international donor agencies for
the project
vi) Attitude and behavior of project’s staffs
The conflict of compensation and participation not only occurred because of attitude and
behavior of local stakeholder’s but also rose due to the behavior of field staffs, especially
the consultant. Therefore, it is necessary to change the behavior and attitude of project’s
consultant’s also. The government or responsible authority can provide training to the field
staffs especially consultant on how to act with the local people in the field. Such training can
minimize the conflict which is going to happen because of the attitude and behavior of the
project’s staff.
b) Specific Internal Causes of Conflicts
There are also specific causes for each of three conflicts which are described below.
i) Specific internal causes of compensation
 Unequal distribution of compensation among stakeholders
Research finding shows that office staffs did not pay attention to the individual issue of
compensation. If the board had addressed the individual issue on time, the compensation
issue might not be converted into the big conflict. The findings also show that local people
created problem because of feeling of unequal distribution of compensation to them by
MWSDB. The resettlement officer, SSDSC, MR. Shiva Prasad Dhakal also stated that in a
huge development project like MWSDP, unfair distribution in some cases is normal. He
further mentioned that these cases happened sometime due to personal relationship and
sometime due to physical threats to office staffs by the primary stakeholder. He mentioned
that in some cases, poor people who does not have property and lost everything due to
project construction work also got more compensation because of the humanity.
 Defect in compensation policy
Another reason of conflict of compensation was the lack of proper guidelines in Land
Acquired Act, 2034.
 Inappropriate place for distribution of compensation
According to Surya Kafle, social Mobilizer from Public Relation Consultancy (PRC) which is
under Safeguard and Social Development Support Consultant (SSDSC), the main cause of
conflict of compensation is because of compensation scheme and its distribution system.
27 | P a g e
Local stakeholder can take compensation easily without any difficulty from the site office,
Melamchi which is very near by their home. “So, whenever local stakeholder meets the
project’s staffs or come to market, they come to office and claim the compensation without
any reason (interview, 2012).
 The compensation in cash counting small single plants is not a good plan
The other reason behind conflict of compensation is compensation in the form of cash. This
is the first project which provided compensation to everyone counting the small single
plants. In other development project of other places, people got very little amount of the
money as a compensation but this MWSDP gave cash even for small plants. Therefore, many
of the stakeholder affected by the project got more compensation than they lost. So, the
compensation in form of cash counting the small single plant is not a good system because
the stakeholders can easily obtain cash from the project (interview, 2012).
ii)
Specific Internal Causes of Conflict of Participation
There is not a single cause which created conflict of participation. The combination of
multiple causes created a complex conflict between MWSDB and primary stakeholder.
These causes have been described as follows;
 Lack of community based projects
The staffs of MWSDB said that there was already SUP and that out of the five components
of SUP, Income Generation and Community Development (IGCD) program were
implemented by DDC through Local Governance Program (LGP)8 (interview 2012). Khatri
Chhetri, et al. (2006) have also stated that the MWSDP has implemented the income
generation program through the LGP which aims to develop the projects based on
community need. However, in the field I found that the projects under LGP were not
community based. According to the group of farmers and the teacher of the community, the
DDC projects were not community-need based and the activities lunched by the DDC were
not that much beneficial comparing to the investment. For example, DDC provided income
generation training to them which nobody used in their personnel life (interview, 2012).
 Innermost feeling of Primary stakeholder towards the river resources
The primary stakeholders were demanding to be included in any kind of decision making
process and project implementation level before the project’s construction work was
started. They put this demand because of their innermost affection with the natural
resources which they were using for decades. Although, they did not have any kind of
knowledge about their rights regarding the participation of primary stakeholder in any
development projects like MWSDP, they had feeling of ownership. Therefore, their
innermost feeling of ownership to the natural resources (river) also made conflicts to
happen.
 Lack of public awareness about the SUP Implemented by the LDC
8
LGP focused on demand driven development approach where the local people form groups and based on their demand the program
supports them (Khatri -Chhetri, et al., 2006, p. 83).
28 | P a g e
Some of the people who were known about the SUP of MWSDP, implemented by DDC, were
demanding the primary stakeholder’s representation for the implementation of SUP. This
means if primary stakeholders were unknown about the SUP implemented by DDC, the
conflict of participation would not be that much high as it became because there are already
many projects implemented by DDC for which they never asked their representation in
project planning and implementation.
 Local Stakeholder Doubt to the Staff of DDC and MWSDB
Some of the primary stakeholder thought that the staffs of MWSDB and DDC are corrupt.
They thought that MWSDP is spending a lot of money for social and community
development but project’s benefit or work is very little and those projects which were
implemented are also no more beneficial. Therefore, they also appealed to MWSDB for
making everything transparent.
The community development project should be very transparent in terms of information
flow. The project officials have to inform every kind of activities including budget
distribution for different project, its activities and also the progress. Similarly, the feedback
should be collected from the primary stakeholders and it should be implemented
accordingly. Otherwise stakeholder may doubt to the office staffs and blame for corruption
even if project officials are not corrupt.
iii) Specific Internal Causes of Conflict of indigenous right
The Hyolmo community living in Helambu VDC is the indigenous community whose
settlement is in the upstream side of the Melamchi River. The issues of indigenous right
were raised since the beginning of the project but it was highlighted only when Nepal
Government rectified the ILO convention number 169. Therefore, ILO rectification by Nepal
government is one of the main causes of the conflict of indigenous right.
4.1.5 Conflict Management Process
This section describes result and discussion of the conflict management process separately.
1)
Procedure for Managing Conflict of Compensation
The major stakeholder who raised the economic issues is the people who are directly
affected by the project during road construction. At first, local people complained about
many issues to social mobilizer regarding the loss of their property (land, house, plants, and
animals). The social Mobilizer transfer those complaints and grievances to the project
management team. Then, Community Issue Resolution Team (CIRT) was formed to solve
different type of community problems related to compensation. The team consists of local
representatives, project representatives (expert of resettlement, divisional engineer, and
site engineer), and consultant representative (1 from public resettlement consultancy and
project mgt consultancy which see resettlement), Contractor, who work in site, District
Administration Office (DAO) representative, and representative from District Development
Committee (DDC). These seven members from CIRT go to field and prepare report based on
damages due to the project. This committee assesses the damaged property such as loss of
land, damages of house, damaged number of plants and trees of different species, damages
in public property, damage in land area etc, which are caused by construction activities of
MWSDP. After assessing all those losses and damages, the committee estimates the
29 | P a g e
compensation and prepares the report and then CIRT goes for the negotiation with the local
people. Thereafter, in the negotiation process, local people want to take more
compensation but project want to pay less. The CIRT fix the compensation based on the
compensation policy of MWSDB, local rate and estimate the amount. This estimation should
be passed by separate Authorized Compensation Determination Committee (ACDC) which is
formed from government side. This committee estimates the compensation based on
district rate and the rate that has been provided by the CIRT. This Compensation
Determination Committee consists of three to five members Chief District Officer (CDO)
who work as a president/ leader and other members include Land Revenue Officer (LRO),
Local Development Officer (LDO), Representative of Village Development Committee (VDC)
and representative from MWSDP. This committee determines the compensation for the loss
of property of particular family or person based on land pattern and quality of land. The
project affected stakeholder get the compensation after the ACDC passes the
compensation. The compensation determination process is same for both upstream and
downstream stakeholder. However, the upstream stakeholders (Helambu) got less amount
of compensation for the same size of land and other property in comparison to the
downstream stakeholders (Melamchi) because of difference in land quality and location of
the land. The land in Helambu VDC is in remote area and also less productive comparing to
the land in Melamchi VDC. The upstream and downstream stakeholder both were happy
after following the negotiation process to settle down the conflict of compensation.
Figure 11 shows the process of fixation of compensation followed by the MWSDB.
Figure 11 Conflict management process (Compensation)
2) Conflict of Participation and its Management Process
The Major stakeholders who created the conflict of participation are the direct and indirect
affected stakeholder of 14 project affected VDCs. Therefore, primary data were collected
from both direct affected and indirect affected stakeholders.
30 | P a g e
Since the beginning of the project (1997/1998), primary stakeholders had demanded the
project officials to inform any kind of project activities on time. They also appealed project
officials to give opportunity for them to participate in project planning and implementation.
However, in the beginning, this demand was in shadow because of the project’s
construction activities which had damaged lots of private and public properties. So,
everyone was more concerned about their private property and they tried to obstruct the
project construction activities raising the issues of compensation. Recently, the conflict of
compensation was solved by MWSDB; the issue of participation had started again. In the
beginning, these stakeholders started to raise different kind of social and environmental
issues regarding the construction activities of the project. They demanded MWSDB to
provide opportunity for local people to participate in project designing and implementation
of SUP. They obstructed the construction work continuously giving much pressure to the
MWSDB and the Government. But, at the initial phase, the board ignored to solve the
problem. But at the end with the help and support of external agency (WAFED and media),
MWSDB initiated the conflict management process. These events indicate that the
collaboration and cooperation between and among the primary stakeholders and external
agency played vital role to create the conflict which forced MWSDB to initiate the conflict
management process. The conflict of participation was managed through participatory
approach. The national / central level stakeholders were also involved to settle down the
conflict. The establishment of community based organization called “HSMC” is the final
outcome of the conflict management process.
3) Conflict of Indigenous Rights and its Management
In this part, I have given information about the issues of indigenous right 9, raised by the
Hyolmo community (upstream inhabitants of the Melamchi River). Nepal government is
signatory body of ILO convention no 169, it rectified the convention in 2007. The Hyolmo
community was also categorized as an indigenous community by Nepal government. The
Hyolmo settlement is in Helambu VDC and project’s water diversion scheme is located
nearby their settlement. Therefore, Hyolmo raised the issue of indigenous right immediately
after solving the conflict of compensation/ participation and Nepal rectification to the ILO
convention No 169. They also obstructed the project construction work and also padlocked
the site office (Melamchi) for 3 months (Whyte, 2010) and demanded for the extra benefits
by categorizing them as a most affected stakeholder. All of the information related to their
demand, procedure of addressing their demand by the MWSDB has been described under
this section. This issue was raised by only the upstream inhabitants of the Melamchi River.
a)
Hyolmo demand related to indigenous right
Besides the conflict of compensation and participation, the upstream inhabitants who are
indigenous community raised two different issues of “identity” and “security” during the
construction phase which are different issues than other project affected areas. This
31 | P a g e
community made their voice loud in project construction phase using the dialogue tool
ILO169 (interview, 2012). The project was initiated in 1998 and the Hyolmo communities
raised the issues of indigenous right after the Nepal governments rectify the ILO convention
no. 169 in August 22, 2007 (interview, 2012). In this agreement, rights of indigenous people
over the private land and natural resources and right of political, social, economical, cultural
rights of indigenous people have been described.
I talked with the representative from Hyolmo committee and found that Hyolmo knew
about ILO convention no. 169 by Gopal Shiwakoti, “Chintan” (an activist and professional
lawyer and coordinator of Water and Energy Users’ Federation (WAFED Nepal). Thereafter,
Hyolmo started to see the MWSDP linking with the ILO169. Hyolmo became unsatisfied with
the project’s benefits from SUP (which was already provided by the MWSDP through HSMC)
only and submitted their demands (see table 6) in February 11, 2009 AD and in July 8, 2009
AD. The demands were submitted to MWSDB, government in written form by forming
Hyolmo Concerned Committee (HCC). They obstructed the project work by stopping the
office bus, padlocking the office for three months. When government did not see any
possibility of project completion, the government started to address their demand.
According to Bharat KC (Ex. Executive Director of the MWSDP), Hyolmo raised issues
without full understanding of the indigenous right. The understanding of the Hyolmo
community about this ILO 169 is that “we have right to use the natural resources based on
our choice because we were using these resources for long time ago and nobody should
have used these resources without taking permission from us. Everybody, even Nepalese
government has to ask for permission if government want to use it. Moreover, we are also
the upstream inhabitant, source of water is located nearby us, and so government should
have categorized us as “most affected stakeholders” among others stakeholders, in that
sense MMWSDP have to give extra benefits for us. And, being one of the major indigenous
communities of Nepal we want government to put our identity in project’s name”. These
are the demands they asked with the MWSDB. During the interview, Hyolmo said that they
would not have obstructed project in that way if they would have been consulted and
included in the project planning phase. Such type of behavior made them to think that their
culture and religion were not being respected by the MWSDB. All of the resources they see
around them are gift of god and they worship them. These are some causes why Hyolmo
protested the project work raising the issue of indigenous right. In section 6.2, I have
discussed about the procedure of addressing the issue of Hyolmo by Nepalese Government.
b) Procedure for addressing Issue of indigenous right
Hyolmo obstructed the project construction work taking the right of indigenous community,
ILO169. Therefore, government decided to form one study team for analyzing the issues and
demand of Hyolmo and recommend the reasonable projects for the welfare of Hyolmo
community. The team members who were involved in the study team are as follows:
i) Professor, Dr. Ganeshman Gurung, Team Manager
ii) Dr. Diwas Basnet, water resource specialist
iii) Krishna Prasad Acharya, Assistant secretary, Ministry of Physical Planning and
Works, member
iv) Bharat Bahadur KC, Executive Director, MWSDB, member
32 | P a g e
v) Binod Kumar Gautam, vice secretary, MPPW, member
vi) Bashudev Prasad Devkota, Team leader, SSDSC, member
vii) Urgen lama, Manager, Hyolmo Drinking Water Concern Committee, member
viii) Pasang Lama , Community Representative, member
ix) Dawa lama, Community Representative, Member.
This study team had followed different techniques of data collection in the field based on
their demands. They used interview technique, interaction program and observation for the
data collection. They collected data from different stakeholder such as political leaders (Dr.
Larkel Lama respected Dawa Tamang, and Dolma Tamang, ex, prime minister and national
democracy party, Pashupati Samsher Rana, Dharma lama, vice- president), representatives
from Hyolmo Concerned Committee (HCC), local elite, village president, school teachers and
farmers. The place of study areas those study team selected are Melamchighyang, Nakote
village, Tarke Ghyang and Ghyangul (Field Study Report, 2011).
This study team had recommended different project based on the demands of Hyolmo. The
demands of Hyolmo were almost related to the right of indigenous community on land,
water, environment, religions, health, culture, communication and employment, etc which
is related to ILO169. Their demands and recommended projects by the project have been
given in table 2.
Table 2 Hyolmo demands and recommendations by study team
S.N.
1
2
4
5
Demands by Hyolmo
Recommendation from study team
The land of the water source should For the identification of their community,
be in the name of Hyolmo
name of site office has been changed. The
new name was already Published in the
Nepal gazette of 27th of April 2010. The new
name is “ Hyolmo Melamchi Water Supply
Development Project”
Cultural identification and religion
- Construction of Hyolmo museum in
conservation
Timbu to provide information about
Hyolmo to the visitors
- Submission of request to the Nepal
government for listing their mains
festivals as national level festivals.
- Identification of oldest Monastery in
Helambu
Education
Support to open higher secondary school
(10+2) in Timbu. MWSDB will give salary for
3 numbers of teachers in the first year.
Teachers should be included in secondary
level from Hyolmo Community.
Hospital construction for the sake of 15 bed hospitals should be constructed by
health
the project. The coordination of MWSDB
with
health
ministry
has
been
recommended
33 | P a g e
6
Security: they are living above water
sources, so due to open defecation
and other pollution done by them;
their settlement will be displaced
when project construction work will
be completed and water will be
transferred and distributed to the
citizens of Kathmandu valley.
This issue rose because of lack of knowledge
on how water will be treated to make
pollution free before the distribution of
water. They never had seen a water
treatment plant before (Bharat KC, 2012).
Therefore, MWSDP made them visit the big
water treatment plant in Pokhara and other
places and they became convinced and gave
permission to continue the construction
work (interview, 2012).
7
Representation and Participation
The Hyolmo representative should be
involved for any kind of decision making
process
8
Road construction
Project should help to construct road from
Timbu- Tarkeghayng, Timbu to Nakote,
Timbu to Melamchighayng
9
Written letter should be provided No displacement of water source
stating that there will be no loss of
water resources and if so government
has to be responsible for that.
10
Levy provision
Hyolmo should also get water levy like other
14 VDCs
11
Need extra benefits because of Most It is necessary because there are geophysical
affected area.
difficulties, no easy transportation facility,
education and health facilities. So, extra
benefits for them are reasonable. Therefore,
separate Hyolmo Upliftment Program (HUP)
has been made for Hyolmo Community in
addition to other benefits such as
compensation and Social Upliftment
Program (SUP). These projects are
implemented through “Hyolmo Concerned
Committee (HCC), which was formally
registered in February 3, 2009 AD
(2065/10/21 BS)”. It represents the Helambu
region only.
12
Tourism promotion
Hyolmo coordination with Nepal tourism
board to give priority for promotion of
Hyolmo
13
Hyolmo Upliftment Programme
Development works from their own
participation
(Field Study Report, 2011)
The Hyolmo community being an indigenous community and upstream inhabitants of the
Melamchi river, they demanded Nepal government to categorize them as a “most affected
stakeholder”. This demand was finally fulfilled by Nepal government, Ministry of Physical
Planning and Works (MPPW) in August 2, 2009 AD. Finally, they got extra Nepalese Rupees
34 | P a g e
(NRs) 40,000,000 for different social and community development projects. The cost
divisions for different types of project have been given in Annex 1.6.
It seems that when project was signed with the ADB, international donor agency in august
1998 AD, Nepal was not the signatory member of this ILO169. So, Nepal government
generalized every project’s affected stakeholder equally and implemented the SUP based on
the project’s document. In my opinion, the main reason behind addressing their issue is the
international funding organization, Asian Development Bank (ADB). ADB had policy and
provision related to protection of rights of indigenous community which was already
mentioned in the agreement paper although Nepal was not signatory body of ILO169 at that
time of agreement.
35 | P a g e
Chapter V
Disucssion
5. Analysis of the Results
This section provides the discussion of research findings. I have compared the research
result with the information found in the literature.
5.1 Causes of Conflicts
I have found two major causes of conflicts: external and internal factors. External factors are
common to all the conflicts but there are some specific causes among the conflicts which
are explained below.
5.1.1 External Factors
In 2002, Metro FM a local radio station from [CITY] conducted a discussion program about
the Melamchi Issues. Similarly, in 2003, civil society WAFED sent a concern letter to ADB
headquarters raising its major concern about land compensation for people’s participation
in the implementation of the Social Upliftment Program (SUP). Thereafter, orientation
training was organized by the WAFED and Local concern groups to make them aware about
the issues raised in Melamchi valley. All of these activities conducted by WAFED/ civil
society and media made local people aware about their rights at a national and
international level in relation to compensation, participation and indigenous rights. As a
result, project stakeholders disagreed with the project work drastically. This proved that the
external agencies especially WAFED and Media supported local people to get their right by
raising the awareness program and also helped to protect the right of local people by
advocating in the national level. In my opinion, if the primary stakeholder were not aware
and empowered by the external agency WAFED, the issues that were raised in the Melamchi
valley would not turn into conflicts. Therefore, the project managers like MWSDP always
have to identify and prepare the project plan in close collaboration with those stakeholders
who can come against the project during the project implementation phase.
Additionally, the existing conflicts between MWSDB and primary stakeholder were triggered
by the instable government. This not only changes the staff of project but also changes the
project management strategy because when new staff comes, they don’t know about the
previous activities and project implementation strategy. As a result, not only impacted to
the internal project management system but also changed the overall situation in the field.
It is advisable for a big development project like MWSDP, if possible, to keep the same staffs
(at least in management level) from the beginning of the project construction to the end. If
the staff changes, there should be previous record in office and same management strategy
36 | P a g e
should be followed by the new comers, otherwise there is always a chance and risk of
conflict between project’s staffs and stakeholder because of changing pattern of the work.
5.1.2 Internal Factors
The research finding shows that issues raised by the primary stakeholder were not
addressed by the MWSDB management which is a great mistake. Also, starting the project
construction work without fulfilling the primary stakeholder’s need made local people more
aggressive. This proves that the main reason of conflicts is weakness of project
management. The specific causes for each conflict are described below;
1) Specific Causes of Conflict of Compensation
a) Unsystematic distribution of compensation
In my research, I found that one of the major causes of conflict of compensation was the
unequal distribution of the compensation. The report by Khatri – Chhetri, et al. (2006) also
stated that in the MWSDP, compensation was not distributed in equitable manner. Those
people who have high social network were greatly benefited by the project and the poor
ones, who live in the village, did not even know how to approach for compensantion and
were impacted negatively (Khatri – Chhetri, et al., 2006). This proves that the conflict of the
compensation was occurred because of the unequal distribution of the compensation
among the primary stakeholder.
b) Personnel Behavior and attitude of the project’s staffs as well as the primary
stakeholders
Wertheim (2012) has stated that the conflict for particular project can also come because of
the attitude and behavior of the people (Wertheim, 2012). In case of MWSDP, besides the
unequal distribution of the compensation, the attitude and behavior of the project’s staffs
and primary stakeholder also played vital role to create the conflict of compensation. The
project’s staffs especially, consultants respond everything positively to the public even
though their demands did not fall under the policy of rules and regulation of the project’s
compensation policy. Similarly, the unequal distribution of compensation also occurred
because of the attitude of the project’s staff. The people who have good relation with
project’s staff got more benefits than other who do not have good relation with them
(Khatri – Chhetri, et al., 2006). Similarly, the behavior and attitude of the primary
stakeholder also invited conflict of compensation for example many of the stakehlder
proposed frequent compensation for the greed of money.
c) Lack of information sharing to the public about the compensation package
I found that there was lack of public information even for those whose land was taken for
the construction of road. The information was given to the VDC office only. In the public
notice, only the area of land for the construction purpose was mentioned but the
compensation policy and method was lacking. Similarly, the procedure and place of
appealing process (if they are unsatisfied with the compensation) was also not mentioned in
that notice. It has been also reported that in most of the development project like MWSDP
funded by Asian Development Bank (ADB), there is always problem of information sharing in
every region of the ADB. And when there was information, this was given in English
37 | P a g e
language which most people cannot read and understand (Eralieva, 2010). The written
notice was sent to the VDC office in Nepalese (national) language but that notice was not
sent to everyone. Similarly, even if some of the people get notice in their hand they did not
get information well because the entire project affected stakeholder could not read and
write. This proves that the public notice given in written form only is not the effective way
for the information flow. The verbal communication using media in local language can be
the effective way for the public notice.
d) Loss of tenancy land/ improper documentation
According to the resettlement policy of MWSDB, land tenant does not get any
compensation for the loss of their land but get the compensation for the loss of their
livestock, plant, trees, or whatever they have and produced in the land. According to the
policy, such tenant can get the compensation based on the agreement made with his/ her
land owner. In case of absence of land owner, such tenant can get full compensation for
their loss including land. MWSDB fixed the compensation based on the type of property
they have produced in such land. For instance, if tenant has grown the fruits and made place
for the livestock, then compensation will be fixed by calculating the total amount of money
tenant can earn in 5 years from the sale of those products. Similarly, in case of other trees
and seasonal products, compensation is fixed calculating the average amount of money they
can earn in 3 years by selling those products. If such tenant does not have any option to
regulate his/ her livelihood except income from the land which is acquired by the MWSDP,
he/ she will be separated as a most affected stakeholder from the project and such tenant
can get special benefits such as resettlement allowance (Resettlement policy, 2002, p.13).
According to farmers, such kinds of provision are found in the policy document but these
policies have not been implemented. I cross checked with this statement with the office
staffs and they told me that there are many cases which do not fall under the compensation
policy of MWSDB. Some of the project affected stakeholder did not have property
ownership document, in this case MWSDB did not provide compensation for those people.
e) Lack of proper guidelines in Land Acquired Act, 2034
There are two major principles of Land Acquired Act 2034, but there are no specific rules
and regulation that fulfill the need of changing society (staff’s interview, 2012). Therefore,
MWSDP itself prepared the comprehensive resettlement policy, plans, rules and regulations
according to time and need of the society to acquire the land from the citizens and followed
it (resettlement policy, 2002). This policy provides compensation for those stakeholders only
who are directly affected by the project’s construction work but does not provide
compensation for those who have the possibility to suffer from the projects after diverting
water from Melamchi to Kathmandu. For example, fishing is a traditional and one of the
most important sources of income generation for Majhi10 but this policy does not provide
compensation for them who lost their traditional occupation. I found that some of the
10
“Majhi “is one of the indigenous communities in Nepal who involve for fishing activities professionally.
38 | P a g e
fishermen were already involved in house construction activities leaving their original
occupation. In Kathmandu, central office of MWSDB, the Lawyer Sakuntala Chaudary told
me that there is a research study going on how many fishermen will be affected by the
project. According to Mr. Balkrishna Deuja, leader of Melamchi Local Concerned Groups
(MLCG), the following stakeholder will have to suffer negatively after diverting water to
Kathmandu:
) More than 100 watermills will be affected from Melamchi to Timbu, Helambu
VDC
i) More than 100 fisherman will be affected from Melamchi to Timbu
ii) About 500 household will be affected by irrigation
Khatri – Chhetri, et al. (2006) have also reported that the project is giving priority only to
those residing on the road side. So there was a defect in policy making for defining and
classifying the impacted households and project impacted village development committees.
All above information proves that there many defects in the resettlement policy prepared
by the MWSDB. The policy also became one of the causes of conflict between local
stakeholders and MWSDB.
2) Specific Causes for Conflict of Participation
The specific causes of conflict of participation under the internal causes are mentioned
below:
a) lack of community based program
The activities implemented by the MWSDP were not community based. WAFED and MLCC
sent complaint letter to the ADB stating that the projects implemented under SUP were not
community based projects. This problem occurred because the lack of adequate
consultation and involvement of the local people during planning, implementation and
monitoring. They have also mentioned that the SUP has been largely consultant-imposed
from the top. Therefore it failed to address the local needs and the local priorities (Special
Facilitator Report, 2004).
b) lack of sharing of the information about the implemented projects by the MWSDB
The SUP was implemented by DDC but many of the primary stakeholders did not known
about these projects. Similarly, the DDC also did not spread message to the primary
stakeholder about the actual owner of the projects. DDC spread the message to the primary
stakeholder like a regular program of DDC and did not mention the relation between DDC
and MWSDP (Pokharel, 2006). In fact, the DDC was partner institution of MWSDP to
implement the SUP. DDC had already Income Generation Community Development Program
(IGCD), so SUP was implemented under DDC since the beginning of the project
implementation. The primary stakeholder did not know that the SUP implemented by the
DDC is the mitigation measure of MWSDP. Therefore, primary stakeholder asked for the
social benefits for the loss of their natural public property and when project’s staff said that
39 | P a g e
the projects implemented by the DDC are the project of MWSDB, they came against the
staffs and created conflict.
c) Feeling of ownership
Although the people from Melamchi Valley are uneducated they know that the river belongs
to them (wafed.org,) proving that they had feeling of ownership towards the river. This
feeling of ownership also encouraged them to create the conflict of their participation.
Most of the conflicts occurred due to weak project management. The project affected
stakeholders were not consulted by the project officials before starting the construction
work. The information regarding compensation was not reached at household level. The
information provided to the public did not cover all of the information that should have
been given. Active involvement of primary stakeholder is necessary to implement any
project successfully; otherwise, during the project construction the possibility of conflict
between project’s official and primary stakeholder become high and might result in a delay
in project.
5.2 Conflict Management Processes
This section discusses the conflicts management processes. The major content of this
chapter include conflicts management processes, outcomes of conflict management
process, strength and weakness of the conflict management process and research
learning’s.
5.2.1 Conflict of Compensation and its Management Process
The primary stakeholder and project’s staff told me that conflict was managed through a
negotiation process. According to Rubin and Brown (1975), “negotiation is a process in
which individuals work together to formulate agreements about the issues in dispute”.
Figure 11 shows that primary stakeholder and the representative from MWSDB were
involved in the negotiation process to determine the amount of compensation. There were
other representatives from government side to guarantee that primary stakeholders were
not enforced to agree with the amount what was offered by the MWSDB as compensation.
According to Wertheim (2012), collaboration is one way of responding to conflict, where
everyone wins and in this conflict management process collaboration was used to solve the
conflict. Different stakeholders have played different role in the negotiation process and
based on their contribution, they are categorized and positioned in different places in the
negotiation process.
1) Roles of Stakeholders Involved in the Negotiation Process
In the negotiation process, social mobilizer had played the role of mediator between the
local people and MWSDB. Local people considered themselves as victims and Community
Issue Resolution Team (CIRT) from MWSDB tried to play the role of first rescuers; however,
the local people were unsatisfied with the compensation fixed by the CIRT team. A second
team, Authorized Compensation Determination Committee (ACDC) played the role of
second rescuer and finally, the local people were satisfied with the amount of compensation
and the conflict was settled in some extent.
40 | P a g e
2) Positioned of the Stakeholder in the Negotiation Process
The analysis of negotiation process to solve the conflict of compensation has showed that all
of the stakeholders had not equal influence in the decisions making process. According to de
Groot, et al. (2006), stakeholders can be grouped into four major categories based on their
potential capability to influence the decision making process or their importance to a
particular project. These stakeholders are named as primary, secondary, tertiary or external
stakeholders, and others. In this negotiation process, I have categorized stakeholders and
their position based on the contribution of stakeholder to solve the conflict of
compensation. The contribution of different stakeholder has been measured by the
involvement of the local stakeholders and their capacity to influence in the decision making
process and the role they played in the negotiation process (Figure 12).
High
Interest
Low
A. stakeholder who stands to lose or gain B. Stakeholders who stand to lose
significantly from the negotiation AND or gain significantly from the
whose actions can affect the decision negotiation BUT whose actions
making
in the negotiation process can not affect the decision making
Low
Primary
in the negotiation process
1. Direct Affected Stakeholder (DAS)
Secondary
2. Land Revenue Officer (LRO)
Not applicable
3. MWSDB
C. Stakeholders whose actions can affect D. stakeholders who do not stand
the negotiation BUT do not stand to lose to lose or gain much from the
or gain much from the negotiation
project AND whose actions cannot
Tertiary or External
affect the project’s ability to meet
District Administration Office (DAO)
its objectives.
District Development Committee (DDC)
1. social mobilizer
Village Development Committee (VDC)
representative
Low
(Degree of impact in decision making process)
Figure 12 Stakeholder categorization and prioritization in negotiation process
a) Primary Stakeholders (A)
There are three major stakeholders which fall under the category of primary stakeholders in
the negotiation process.
i) Direct affected stakeholders (DAS)
These are the primary stakeholders from 14 VDCs whose land was acquired by the MWSDB
or damaged by the construction of the MWSDP. They had played the role of victims, are
categorized as primary stakeholders and placed in the first position because they were
involved in the decision making process. Thereafter, negotiation was successful. CIRT tried
41 | P a g e
to manage the conflict of compensation without involving them but it was not possible. It
proves that they have also influenced the final decision making process. Other reason for
being categorized as primary stakeholders is because they are the most affected by the
MWSDP. According to Blackman (2003) the people who suffer or get benefits from
implemented project can be categorise as a primary stkaheolder.
ii) District Land Revenue Office (DLRO)
DLRO falls under the department of land reform and management of Ministry of Land
Reform and Management. The major function of the District Land Revenue Office (DLO) is
to coordinate activities in order to settle land disputes in the support of District Land Survey
and Land Management Office. It also conducts land registration and collects revenues. In
managing the conflict of land compensation, the Land revenue Officer (LRO) had played a
role of rescuer and became second level primary stakeholder in the negotiation process.
This stakeholder has been placed in second position because it has influenced the decision
making process drastically. Figure 11 shows that the negotiation process became successful
only with the presence of land revenue officer in the negotiation meeting. The major task of
the land revenue officer was to fix the compensation based on the district rate and rate
provided by CIRT.
iii) Melamchi Water Supply Development Board (MWSDB)
In managing the conflict of compensation, MWSDB had played the role of persecutor from
the perspective of primary stakeholder who was unsatisfied with the compensation
provided by MWSDB. MWSDB is the implementation agency of MWSDP which falls under
the Ministry of Physical Planning and Works, which proves that is the most powerful
stakeholder involved in the meeting which has government power and resources to control
the overall process. However, in the negotiation process, it holds a third (last) position of
primary stakeholders because negotiation did not become successful without involving the
two other stakeholders in the meeting. In the negotiation process, although direct affected
stakeholders have low influencing power, they hold decision making power in the
negotiation process.
b) Secondary Stakeholder (B)
In the negotiation meeting, the secondary stakeholders are absent.
c)
External and tertiary stakeholders (C)
Two stakeholders fall under this category.
i) District Administration Office (DAO)
In the negotiation process, there is presence of Chief District Office (CDO) as a chief or
president of the meeting. CDO is the head of the District Administration Office (DAO). CDO
has been categorized in the External or tertiary stakeholder in this negotiation process
because CDO was involved in the CIRT team but he/she could not manage the conflict in the
42 | P a g e
first round. There was need of hiring/ collaborating with other officials from Land Revenue
Office (LRO) to settle the dispute of compensation. This proves that CDO had not influenced
the decision making process. In this sense, it has been categorized as an external
stakeholder and placed in first position (CDO involved in the meeting as a president and
fulfilled the responsibility of DAO. The main responsibilities of the DAO include maintain
peace and security in the district, coordination with all district level offices and solve all
sorts of cases and disputes within the district.
ii) District Development Committee (DDC)
The Local Development Officer (LDO) is the chief of the DDC. It was also involved in the
negotiation process as an external stakeholder and was included in the CIRT team and in the
final meeting. DDC have to formulate and implement development plans in the district and
also act as a pivot between the centre and the villages. Basically, it formulates programs and
provides budget for the basic needs of the community like rural infrastructure, drinking
water supply, health and sanitation.
d) Other (D)
There are two stakeholders who fall in this category and they are VDC representative and
Social Mobilizer.
i) VDC representative
VDC representatives are involved in the negotiation process as guests. Therefore cannot
influence in the decision making process and also do not get any benefit or loss from the
final decision.
ii) Social Mobilizer
Social mobilizer has played a role of mediator between the victims (direct affected
stakeholder) and MWSDB. The main role of the social mobilizer was to inform about the
grievances of the local people to the management board of MWSDB and then in CIRT.
Although, the negotiation process starts from the support of social mobilizer, he/she did not
influence the decision making process in the meeting.
5.2.2 Outcome of the Negotiation Process
The most important outcome of the negotiation process is that it was able to produce one
systematic guideline for the compensation. Thereafter, people who were unhappy with the
MWSDB thinking about the unequal distribution started to respect the field staff and
contractor. Project’s construction work became easy and fast. After this negotiation, most
of the stakeholders became happy with the MWSDB and made a good relation with project
staffs (interview 2012). However, this compensation mechanism in cash leaded a series of
other conflicts in the project which effected on the long term plan of the project.
The policy document of MWSDB about the compensation package has covered those
property damaged directly by the project during the construction of roads and other
infrastructures and land acquired for the purpose of establishments of offices and other
infrastructure (i.e. reservoir tanks, water treatment plants, site offices, dumping quarries
during tunnel and road constructions and so on) (Khatri – Chhetri, et al., 2006).
Compensation for the indirect effect to those people whose livelihood is somehow
43 | P a g e
depended on the fishing and watermills are not well articulated in the project’s EIA
document, for example, Ghattas11 placed on road sides would be unproductive after water
diversion. Similarly, fishing activities are potentially threatened in water scarcity situation
and farmlands have potential negative impacts, if there was water deficit after water
diverting from the river (Khatri – Chhetri, et al., 2006).
5.2.3 Strength and Weakness of Project and Conflict Management Process
The conflict management process can be called good when all of the root causes of the
conflict are addressed. If the root causes of the conflict have not been addressed well, the
possibilities of conflict still remain. Figure 13 shows three different types of causes of
conflict and combining effect of those three factors invited conflict. The figure shows that
the conflict was occurred because of weak project management because, the project has
made mistake from the beginning of the project cycle (see Figure, 13 in internal 1) to project
implementation (see figure, 13 in internal 2).
1) Strength and Weakness of the Conflict Management Process (CMP)
Negotiation tool was used to manage the conflict of compensation which was created due
to the feeling of unequal distribution of compensation. The project affected stakeholder
directly involved in the negotiation. However, the MWSDB did not try to address the issues or
causes of different stakeholder who created problem in project work due to their negative attitude
and behavior towards project’ staffs and project’s compensation package. Although the attitude and
behavior seems small, it created many problems in project’s construction work and official works.
The MWSDB lacks to apply measures for this. In fact, attitude and behavior of the project
stakeholder should had been understood before the project planning phase and based on that, the
project should have provided some measures to change their behavior.
Project management team has to give training to the project’s staffs especially field staff
and consultant before they were hired. In case of MWSDB, this case was not happened in
the project planning period and, the MWSDB did not apply any measure to change the
behavior of the project stakeholder even after conflict was occurred. The MWSDP did not
focus in giving knowledge and changing attitude and behavior of the local stakeholders
which is considered as their weakness from the conflict management point of view.
2) The Strength and Weakness of MWSDP
The project had the policy of compensation and participation which is the strength of the
project. However, having a good compensation plan and policy, MWSDB could not
implement the compensation plan effectively, being this the greatest weakness of the
project management team. I have found major 6 causes (see figure 13 in internal 1) which
helped to create conflict in project implementation phase. Similarly, there is other external
cause (support by external agency and unstable government) which should have thought in
the project planning. For example, the project could search the external agencies and made
good relation with them in the project planning stage, such as NGOs and other institutions
11
Ghattas are the traditional machines for grinding food grains.
44 | P a g e
which can influence the project plan during the implementation phase. Similarly, they could
make provision of keeping same staff permanently (at least some staff of project
management level) from the project implementation phase to project completion phase. In
figure 13, I have tried to show the overview of causes of conflict of compensation and its
management process. This figure help to project manager like MWSDP to understand the
possible causes (factors) of conflict related to compensation. This knowledge finally
contributes to develop the good compensation plan in some extent and reduce the risk of
conflict between project and primary stakeholder.
Figure 13 Overall Conflict Management Process “Compensation”
5.2.4 Compensation Plan for Conflict Management
Compensation in this research is the payment to the primary stakeholder (directly affected)
by the MWSDP for the loss of private property such as land and other associated property.
Compensation package became a source of conflict in MWSDP due to lack of good
compensation plan or compensation distribution mechanism. The project manager like
45 | P a g e
MWSDP has to develop the most fair compensation measure to minimize the possibilities of
conflict on the issue of compensation. From the research, I have found some major criteria
that need to be considered while preparing and distributing the compensation plan by the
project manager (table 3).
Table 3 Criteria for compensation plan
Prepare Compensation plan for the land acquisition
1
2
3
Criterias to be consider
Which type of compensation
Whom
Who (compensation agency)
Suggested options
Cash
Direct affected stakeholder
The responsible authority, government
4
When (project plan,
implementation)
5
6
How compensation fixed
Concept of equity and equivalence
Where (place of compensation Center place for all primary stakeholder is good but
distribution
sometimes it may disturb the projects work
because of frequent visit of primary stakeholder to
the office
Characteristics of the community Attitude and behavior of the compensation taking
stakeholder
7
8
design, project
phase
planning/designing
or
preconstruction
Characteristics of the project Attitude and behavior of the project’s staffs
staffs
9
Think about external factors such
as instable government
10 Assess the external agencies
which can create problem during
any phase of project cycle
11 Check
application
of
compensation plan and finalize it
provision of permanent staff from the project
planning to completion
Assessment and involvement of different external
agencies which are favors and against of project
since project planning and designing phase.
Check the compensation regulation with the
stakeholder and find out whether this policy or
regulation matched in that place or not
The development of good compensation plan, public notice, public hearing and opportunity
of appeal in case of disagreement and distribution of compensation in agreed time are other
major criteria which help to minimize the conflict between project officials and project
affected stakeholders. Similarly, clear information to the project affected stakeholder about
the valuation and determination of compensation and its distribution system in public
notice provide opportunity to the project affected stakeholder to think whether the
compensation they are getting is enough or not (satisfactory). Additionally, flexible
legislation allows providing reasonable compensation for certain stakeholder who needs
more than expected because of their livelihood status after acquiring the land, for example,
special compensation allowance can be provided to those stakeholder whose livelihood is
under threat because of acquisition of land and other natural services. Following figure 14,
46 | P a g e
shows the process of information exchange between any project like MWSDP and its
primary stakeholder about the compensation package.
Figure 14 Information exchange process between project and primary stakeholder
5.2.5 Lessons learned
1) For project planning and designing phase
i) The project like MWSDP should have not begun the construction activities without
solving social and economical issues
ii) The project manager should have not ignored individual issue of primary
stakeholders; otherwise. It may become a group issue which can convert into
conflict.
iii) The project manager should provide every kind of information to the primary
stakeholder which can have positive and negative impact to them
iv) The project’s staff should not give positive response to the primary stakeholder if
their demand does not fall under the rules and regulation of project’s policy. If
project staffs have promised something, that should be fulfilled on time
v) There should be provision of permanent staffs (at least management level staff) from
the project planning to implementation to completion phase. Similarly, if the staff
changes, there should be previous record in office and same management strategy
should be followed by the new comers, otherwise there is a chance to create conflict
between project’s staffs and stakeholder because of changing pattern of work.
2) Common Learning from all conflicts of compensation
i) Compensation should be distributed in concept of equity and equivalence.
47 | P a g e
ii) The resettlement policy of compensation should be very flexible which provide
project manager some space to make special decision in certain circumstances. For
instance, if someone’s land is taken by the project and if he/she does not have any
option other than this, the project manager can provide some benefits by making
some provision.
iii) The project management should also think about the place of compensation
distribution depending upon the nature of the project’s stakeholder.
iv) The project manager also has to think about what type of compensation best fits for
loss of particular property.
5.3 Conflict Management Process “Participation”
The local stakeholder from project affected Village Development Committee directly and
indirectly affected by the project raised the issue of participation and asked to form a
committee that could represent all the 14 affected VDCs including a very vulnerable group
of the society (women, indigenous, untouchable caste). The name of the committee is
Hyolmo - Sindhu - Melamchi Valley Social Upliftment Program Implementation Committee
(HSMC). The constitution of this committee was prepared in 2007/2008 and from this time
SUP was implemented by this committee. In the beginning, this committee was in ad hoc
form but from 2010 this committee has been already established as an institution by the
MWSDP. After forming this committee the SUP is implemented through this committee
which has provided multiple benefits to the primary stakeholder. They are also happy with
the project’s officials. Now, the primary stakeholders have good relation with the MWSDB.
Similarly, the staffs of MWSDB are also happy with the primary stakeholder because they
are not creating any problem for the project’s official work and construction work.
According to Bharat KC (Ex. Executive Director of MWSDB) the handover of SUP to the
community based institution (HSMC) has provided multiple benefits for both parties. To
reach in this point different events were occurred. Those events were occurred to create
conflict (primary stakeholder and its supporter such as WAFED) and manage the conflict
(initiator MWSDB). So, I have separated the overall conflict management process in three
phases: conflict creation phase, management phase cooperation and post management
phase) which has been shown in figure 15.
48 | P a g e
Figure 15 Different phases of conflict creation and management
Figure 15 shows the overall conflict management process in three different phases, briefly
described below:
5.3.1 First Phase (1997 to 2002), Conflict Creation Phase
In 1997 the project was initiated and the primary stakeholders were raising different kind of
issues including participation issues in project planning and implementation level. In this
phase MWSDB did not pay any attention to the demand of primary stakeholder. In the
public hearing program conducted in 1998, the project’s engineer assured the primary
stakeholder to fulfill their demands whatever can be fulfilled under the rules and regulation
49 | P a g e
of the MWSDP. The project officials assured this in 1998 (Samad & Pant, 2006). However, in
the practical field it was not addressed by the MWSDB and finally, the primary stakeholder
started to protest the project’s construction work. They had formed the local concerned
groups and out of them Melamchi Local Concerned Groups (MLCG) was the first group that
was formed to solve the local level problem (especially to solve the issue of compensation)
raised due to project’s construction activities. This group was formed to take the voice of
the primary stakeholder formally to MWSDB. In this time, the issue of participation of
primary stakeholder was raised just because of innermost feeling of ownership on the
natural resources, lack of community demand based projects on one hand and on the other
hand the project’s construction activities damaged lots of private and public property.
Therefore, the issue of local participation was emerged. The MLCG including others were
obstructing the project keeping the demand of participation but their demand was still not
heard by the MWSDB. Although local people were obstructing the project’s construction
activities, the MWSDB did not give attention at that time. That means the issue of primary
stakeholder did not reach high level in the beginning.
Thereafter, in 2000, an informal NGO forum was established by the civil society to advocate
on water and sanitation of Kathmandu valley including Melamchi issues. Similarly, in 2000,
WAFED was formally registered in Kathmandu and started to help primary stakeholder for
their right to protect. Thereafter, in 2002, Civil Society (CS) meeting was organized by
MWSDB where inclusion of public voice in Melamchi issues was discussed. So, the 2002
become as a transition period from conflict to cooperation. From 2000, MWSDB started to
initiate the discussion program taking the issue of concern of primary stakeholders.
Similarly, in 2002, Metro FM also conducted discussion program on radio about Melamchi
Issues (Khatri – Chhetri, et al., 2006). Therefore, this period (1997 to 2002) remained like a
phase of formation of group which advocate for the right of the primary stakeholder or
poor. The conflict was not managed in this phase so this time remained as a conflict creation
phase.
Comparing this situation with the different levels of participation given by Blackman (2003),
the lowest level of participation called “Coercion (involvement rather than the
participation)” fits best. From the group discussion and interview with the members of local
concerned group, I found that there was no participation at all in the planning and
implementation of SUP. The primary stakeholder had not given power to decide which kind
of project they want and how they want to distribute the budget for different kind of
community development projects. In this sense, I can say that the projects were decided by
others, not by the primary stakeholder.
5.3.2 Second Phase (2002 to 2007) Conflict Management Phase
I have categorized this phase (2002 to 2007) as a cooperation phase because in this time,
MWSDB started to take advice and suggestion from the civil society. It started to work
cooperating with each other. In 2003, MWSDB organized an interaction program and took
decision to make a committee of five members which regularly disseminate the information
regarding the Melamchi project. Similarly, it also started to implement the SUP coordinating
with different local (district) level organizations (district health centre, education, district
development committee. Similarly, MWSDB tried to coordinate with different types of user
groups related to health, education, rural electricity, user group for the participation of the
50 | P a g e
primary stakeholder (Annual Progress Report, 2008). The open letter was sent by WAFED in
2003 to MWSDB and ADB raising its major concern on implementation of SUP. These events
prove that until this time the project did not listen to the voice of primary stakeholder.
Again, in March 29 2004, Joint letter was sent to ADB by WAFED & MLCG where issues
raised in Melamchi was stated (wafed.org). It proves that up to March 29, 2004; the MWSDB
had not given any attention to the demands of primary stakeholder. Similarly, in September
17, 2004, letter was sent to the MSDB requesting for a constructive dialogue. Again, on
November 12, 2004, letter was sent by WAFED to the compliance review panel of the ADB
for the investigation of policies non - compliance in the MWSDP (wafed.org). Thereafter,
from 2004, MWSDB initiated to address the issue of participation and formed the civil
society in district level. In 2005, the ad hoc committee of 45 members was formed [(Chief
District Officer (CDO) as a president) and 19 were selected for Chief Working Committee
(CWC)]. The committee was named as a Hyolmo - Sindhu - Melamchi Valley Social
Upliftment Program Implementation Committee (HSMC). Thereafter, in December 12, 2007,
the MWSDB handover the project’s implementation responsibility to the ad hoc committee
of 45 members and allotment the budget up to 16th of June 2008 (Annual Progress Report,
2008).
So, from 2002 to 2007, MWSDB started to work cooperating with local level civil society and
committee with the leadership of CDO and primary stakeholder. Therefore, this is one of the
most important time period from the conflict management perspective, where MWSDB
handover the SUP forming the ad hoc committee. If I compare this situation with the 5
different level of participation of Blackman (2003), it matched with the cooperation or
partnership (second highest level of participation). In this phase, MWSDP, district level
organization and primary stakeholder started to work cooperating with each other.
5.3.3 Third Phase (after 2007/ 2008 to 2010) Post Conflict Management Phase
In this phase, first meeting of general assembly was conducted in June 9 - 10, 2008. In this
time, new committee was formed to implement the projects for the next two years (June
16th, 2008 - June 16, 2010). The new guideline of SUP was accepted in June 21, 2008 and
project was being implemented by this committee. Eventually, second general assembly
meeting was organized in January 29, 2010 (Melamchi Diary & Annual Progress Report ,
2011) and in February 24, 2010, HSMC committee was formally registered in
Sindhupalchowk district under institution registration act, 2034 (1977/1978 AD) (HSMC,
brochure). Now, this committee plan and implement the SUP where the committee
members includes 31 members (14 president from each project affected VDCs, 5 women,5
indigenous, 2 untouchable, 1 civil society and elite, 3 from others (political leaders) and 1
from MWSDB). These members are selected from ward level (in one VDC there are 9 wards)
in inclusive manner (representation of women, indigenous, untouchable, etc.). So, in each
VDC 45 members are selected for the Village Committee (VC). Thereafter, 11 members are
selected from each VDCs for the Village Community Committee (VCC) where 154 members
are selected in general assembly (11 members * 14 VDC= 154 members). Finally, 30
members are selected out of total members (154) and 1 member comes from MWSDB (see
figure, 16). This proves that the process of selection of committee members has followed
the participatory approach which indicates that conflict of participation was managed by
using participation tool.
51 | P a g e
I have categorized this level of primary stakeholder participation as collective action,
because, the MWSDB had handover all of the responsibilities of SUP to the HSMC with little
input. In this phase, all of the tasks of SUP have been handed over to the primary
stakeholder; no other external member from civil society and government organization has
been involved. The primary stakeholders themselves set the projects and based on that
implement the project, only one person is from MWSDB out of 31 members in the HSMC.
Moreover, these committees work following the concept of “we do ourselves” and became
a one of the powerful committee because it can even reach directly in ministry level without
keeping touch with MWSDB if needed (see Figure 16).
Figure 16 Institutional structure of SUP
Considering the whole story of conflict and its management process, I can conclude that the
MWSDB initiated the conflict management process forcefully. The MWSDB initiated conflict
management only at that time when their voice was reached to the office of ADB. It proves
that in the beginning MWSDB tried to exclude the primary stakeholder from their right to be
included in project planning and implementation. This means, the primary stakeholders
were not given power to give some input in planning and implementation of SUP even
though the project was made for them. The primary stakeholder got the opportunity to fully
participate in project design and implementation after the ad hoc committee of HSMC was
formed. In the second phase, the stakeholders participated setting the projects, the MWSDB
started to work cooperating with the primary stakeholder which meet the criteria of cooperation/partnership (second highest level of participation given by Blackman (2003). And,
52 | P a g e
finally, in third stage (post management), all of the responsibility was handover to the
primary stakeholder alone for the planning and implementation of SUP. Analyzing the level
of stakeholder participation, three different level of primary stakeholder participation
(coercion, co-operation and collective action) was occurred in the overall process of conflict
management. This proves that the levels of stakeholder participation reached from ground
(coercion12) to peak (collective action).
1) Difference in Level of Primary Stakeholder Participation
The figure 16 shows that the conflict was managed through the participatory approach. The
decision making power was distributed to all of the members involved in the process. The
selected member have been represented the different category of stakeholder in that
society and also represent the place. Therefore, from the point of representation of space
and social characteristics, it can be called that the conflict was managed through
participatory approach. However, going in the field and talking with the different groups of
people I found that the vulnerable groups such as women are included in the committee
only nominally. They are not given any major position by which they can develop their
leadership capacity. Similarly, I also analyzed the existing members of the committee (total
31 members) and I found that there is only one women member, assistant secretary of the
HSMC out of 4 major positions (there are 4 major post president, vice-president, treasurer
and assistant secretary). Similarly, there are no women officer working in this committee,
there are only 4 (18%) women staffs (social Mobilizer) out of 22 office staff in HSMC. This
indicates that the provision of full participation is remained in paper and in real field that
practice has not been implemented. It somehow indicates that although conflict was
managed through participatory approach, every member have not got equal chance to grab
the opportunity provided by MWSDB through SUP. The elite, rich, educated person and the
people who have high social access are benefiting more and those who do not have any
social and financial capacity are not able to get expected benefits. This indicates that there
is still a problem of equal sharing of benefits, but comparing to previous situation (before
formation of HSMC); the participation process has provided far better opportunity for social
and personal development of each and every member of the society. Similarly, the level of
stakeholder participation in SUP has been increased from lowest level (coercion) to highest
level (collective action). Therefore, considering these two special cases, I have concluded
that the conflict of participation was solved through participatory process; however, still
there is room to improve to be called the process as a fully participative.
2) Strength of the Conflict Management Process
Conflict of “participation” was settled by MWSDB through the use of participation tool. The
establishment of HSMC is the final product of the conflict management process. After
forming this HSMC, the primary stakeholder demanded to be involved in the management
level (decision making level) of MWSDB. This demand was also addressed by MWSDB
through amendment in formation of order, 2055. This guarantee their representation in the
12
Coercion is the lowest level of participation which is defined as involvement rather than participation. In this
level of participation, no real input is taken by the stakeholder (powerless), whereas, collective action is the
highest level of participation where primary stakeholder work independently or little input by others. It is
more than cooperation / partnership.
53 | P a g e
decision making level as well. It indicates that both of the parties have won, nobody lose in
the process. Wertheim (2012) has been stated that if the opposing parties feel that we won
something, it means that the win- win situation is created. This situation became possible
only after formation of HSMC which has provided multiple benefits to the primary
stakeholder.
a) Local People’s involvement in SUP from 2007/2008-2010
The primary stakeholder got opportunity to distribute the budget for community need
based projects. Now, Village Community Committee (VCC) of each VDC assesses the basic
need and demand of the different wards of associated VDC and based on that these
committees submit the project proposal to the Chief Working Committee (CWC) .i.e. HSMC.
And, members from HSMC, who are also selected from the local people, approve the project
and send budget to each VCC. Each VDC gets NRs. 21, 00,000 per fiscal year for different
social and development projects. The VCC have to finish it and submit the report to HSMC,
otherwise, HSMC does not issue budget for next year. So, primary stakeholders are getting
multiple benefits from their participation in project formulation and implementation. In the
past (before the HSMC was established), MWSDP was investing money in different projects
for the project affected VDCs but the primary stakeholder were not aware about it, because,
the program was implemented by other government agency and there was lack of
coordination between primary stakeholder and MWSDB. The findings from the group
discussion and interview shows that DDC did not set the projects based on people need
(interview, 2012). Even if DDC implemented some useful development projects, primary
stakeholder did not take care about those. Since 2008, local people set the projects, were
involved in project’s activities and therefore, have ownership feeling which has increased
the sustainability of the project. And, moreover there is no place where budget can be lost,
it is totally transparent.
b) Empowerment of marginalized groups and others
In Nepal, women, indigenous communities and untouchable caste people have been
separated in the category of disadvantages people. These are the members of the society
which are often marginalized from the development and social activities. The main
achievements of the project especially after formation of HSMC have given lots of
opportunities to have access with various social organizations for every member in the
society. There is provision that representative from women, indigenous people and
untouchable caste must be involved everywhere while forming the committee in every level
( see figure 16 institutional structure of HSMC) or making action plan and implementing the
project activities based on their knowledge and capacity to do something. In the chief
committee of HSMC, there are 31 members among them 12 members (39% - 5 women, 5
indigenous and 2 from untouchable) must be included from the people from marginalized
categories. Nowadays these people have also got the opportunity to increase their social
network and change their life style. Except disadvantaged group of people, other people in the
54 | P a g e
project affected areas, are also getting multiple benefits which have been upgraded the status of
their livelihood. According to farmer group discussion, the inhabitants of Melamchi are now less
poor than before.
e) Amendment in formation of order, 2055
After, forming HSMC, primary stakeholder demanded their participation in national level so
that they have easy access to the decision level. At that time, media became more positive
to raise their voice and some of other local level and national level NGO supported
indirectly. These types of support gave strength to the local stakeholder by giving awareness
about the right of the local people over the natural resource management sector. Finally,
after a lot of pressure, obstruction and hurdle from the local people, their demand was
addressed. Nepal Government decided to involve one representative from the HSMC and
started to amend the formation of order, 2055. In April 27th 2010, the new formation order,
2067 was published.
This is the great achievement of local people in this project, becoming the most powerful
stakeholder in this MWSDP. It would be very difficult for them to get this achievement if
there was no establishment of HSMC. The new formation of order, 2067 was also one of the
major induced outcomes of the establishment of HSMC. The members included in formation
of order are as follows:
i) Secretary, Ministry of Physical planning and Construction Works, President
ii) Representative (gazette, first rank), Ministry of Finance , Member
iii) President or other member from Hyolmo- Sindhu- Melamchi Valley Social Upliftment
Program Implementation Committee (HSMC), Member
iv) Chief, Kathmandu Municipality, Member
v) Executive Director of MWSDB, Member Secretary
Out of these five members of MWSDB, there was other member from ministry of water
resources instead of the representative from HSMC. After forming the HSMC, primary
stakeholder got the opportunity to involve for the implementation of SUP in project.
Implementation level which provided great opportunity to keep local concern and issues in the
decision making level.
3) Weakness of the Conflict Management Process
I did not see remarkable weakness in conflict management process followed by MWSDB.
Analysis of selection process for the HSMC shows that the process is very inclusive which
provides opportunity to every member even vulnerable group of the society which is the
positive aspect of the provision of selection process. In the negative side, I found that in the
committee, there is representation of vulnerable groups but they are not given higher
position. Similarly, in the office of HSMC, there are no more staffs are working as officers.
The reason behind this is that most of the members from vulnerable group do not have
capacity to hold the higher position since they are uneducated. Therefore, I do not take it as
a big deal because it is a continuous process and at least now they are members in the
committee which has given the opportunity to increase their social access from ward level
55 | P a g e
to village level and up to district level. In previous times, those kinds of people used to see
themselves as very weak members of the society, now they see themselves differently.
Therefore, conflict management process do not have noticeable weakness which needs to
be improved but the people from vulnerable groups should be given chance to hold some
responsible positions so that they can upgrade their leadership skill as well as social status.
They should be empowered by giving knowledge, education, training, related to financial
management, community leadership, etc.
From the overall conflict and its management process, I found that the conflict was occurred
because of weakness of project management: lack of information sharing or consultation
and participation in project planning, designing and implementation. Besides this, there are
many sub - causes which created conflict in MWSDP and the project manager should
consider all of these causes for making any project conflict free. Figure 17 provides a brief
overview of conflict management process by which project manager will know what kind of
criteria should be considered in the project planning and implementation phase which will
minimize or manage the conflict that can happen during the project implementation.
Figure 17 Conflict management process "Participation"
5.3.4 Lessons learned from Overall Process of Conflict of Participation and its
Management
The root cause of the conflict of participation is lack of primary stakeholder participation in
the project planning and designing phase. If primary stakeholders are consulted before the
project is implemented, there is less chance of conflict during the project implementation.
56 | P a g e
The higher the stakeholder’s participation in the project, lower the possibility of the conflict.
This finally helps to implement the project successfully without conflict and also increase
the sustainability of the project. The project manager like MWSDP should consider following
points from project planning to implementation phase to make any project success.
1) Learning’s Useful for Project Planning and Designing Phase
Same learning as listed in sub section 5.2.5 number 1, from I to v.
2) Attitude and Behavior of Primary Stakeholder
a) The primary stakeholder has created conflict continuously after one conflict has
been solved. Therefore, project manager should consider all of the issues in the
beginning that can come until the end of the project.
b) The projects whose success depends on the primary stakeholder have high chance of
conflict between project official and primary stakeholder. So, the high level of
primary stakeholders’ participation is essential in such a project.
c) The primary stakeholder might create problem due to their emotional feelings
towards natural resources which they are using in their surroundings for decades.
For example, in MWSDP, primary stakeholder thought that the river belongs to them
and created conflict of participation.
d) Projects implemented through coordination with other organizations should be
informed to the primary stakeholders (example SUP was implemented with the
coordination of DDC). Otherwise, primary stakeholder can disturb the work due to
the lack of information.
e) In big development project like MWSDP, the primary stakeholder can create conflict
just because of their doubt to the project’s staff about corruption. So, every kind of
project’s news like budget distribution, investment for the project and progress
should flow regularly.
5.4 Conflict Management Process (Indigenous Rights)
The establishment of Hyolmo Concerned Committee (HCC) itself is the outcome of the
conflict management process. The conflict of indigenous right was also addressed through
participatory approach, so the outcome of the conflict management process has positive
benefits for the Hyolmo as well as the MWSDB.
5.4.1 Extra Benefits for Hyolmo Upliftment Program (HUP)
The main leader of the field study was also from ethnic community that helped to convince
the Hyolmo. The study team recommended various programs which are ongoing. Nepalese
Rupees (NRs) four million budget have been separated for Hyolmo Upliftment Program
(HUP) only (historical preservation, ethnic minority, etc). The extra budget provided by
MWSDB to Hyolmo is given in annex 1.5. Additionally, Hyolmo get other budget also from
SUP) by the HSMC each year. For the SUP, NRs. 42 million has been separated and this
budget is distributed equally among the 14 affected VDCs for small projects. And, if some
VDC needs big development projects which need more budgets (more than NRs. 3, 20,000/
year), the government prioritizes such project in national program.
57 | P a g e
5.4.2 Empowerment of Marginalized Group
MWSDB have provided lots of opportunities for vulnerable groups in Melamchi valley. These
people have got opportunity to have access with various social organizations. There is
provision of inclusion of these groups everywhere while making action plan and
implementing the project through the formation of committee and subcommittee. Hyolmo
also has increased their social power in the society. In previous time they were being
dominated by the higher caste people. They were being considered as a low category
people of the society but now situation has been slightly changed. Now, everyone started to
respect them, people afraid to keep them as a people having low social status.
5.4.3 Lessons learned from the CMP
From the overall history of issues of indigenous rights of Hyolmo and process of addressing
issues by government, the following lessons have been drawn.
1) The indigenous community should be given high priority for any type of
development project like MWSDP because they are vulnerable group of the society
2) The policy which was accepted at the time of agreement with the donor agency
should be followed properly to prevent the conflict that can occurred in project
construction or implementation phase
3) If the issues of particular community are transformed into conflict, the highly
professional member from same community can be selected to convince those
community because they will trust him/her
4) The upstream inhabitants of the Melamchi River is taking more benefits than other
stakeholder living in downstream, since they are categorized as a most affected
stakeholder from the social and spatial point of view (the water diversion intake is
nearby them)
These are the major learning points drawn from the case of Hyolmo. Although the reason of
the conflict is the issue of indigenous right, the main cause of the conflict was same like the
other two conflicts (lack of consultation and stakeholder participation during project
planning and designing phase). This I know from my field study, literature review from
different papers prepared by WAFED, complained letter by local concerned groups and
national and international newspapers. For the proof, I have submitted one quote copied
from paper written by Whyte (2010) “when the project people first came, they hired us to
help clear trees so they could land in their Helicopter, but they never told us they wanted to
take water from our river. They never gave us any information what they were doing here”.
This proves that there was no sharing of information or stakeholder participation from the
beginning of the project planning to implementation of the project. But when conflict was
created, it was managed through collaborative way; most of the demands of Hyolmo were
addressed by the MWSDB and Hyolmo are also satisfied with the outcome of conflict
management process.
58 | P a g e
5.5 Research Process
This section contains the limitations and the validity of the research.
5.5.1 Limitation and Scope of the Research
1) This study is conducted two out of 14 VDCs, thus the study may not be generalised
for the whole country because of small coverage of the study area due to time and
funding constraints. However, the study might assist project manager, other
stakeholders and organizations involved in development sector like MWSDP.
2) The MWSDP covers 3 different districts (Sindhupalchowk, Kavrepalanchowk, and
Kathmandu). The major infrastructure development projects are located in Melamchi
valley and Kathmandu valley. There could be different issues of primary stakeholder in
Kathmandu valley too. This research has not covered the Kathmandu valley. Thus,
further study can be done to analyze the issues raised in MWSDP by the primary
stakeholder of Kathmandu valley.
3) There is inadequate research report which has prepared focusing on all of the major
issues those were raised in MWSDP. This report includes all of the major issues raised by
primary stakeholder of Melamchi valley and also includes the procedure for addressing
each issue. Therefore, the information given in this report is valuable for the project
manager to understand and manage the conflict in project like MWSDP. Thus, this study
has attempted to support the knowledge gap existing in this sector.
5.5.2 Validity of the Research
I had set the research questions according to research objective. Research questionnaires
were tested and modified with the help of project’s staff of MWSDP. This research report
represents the fact situation about causes of conflict and its management process. The open
and semi structured questions were asked with the primary stakeholder as well as other
interviewees. Therefore, I think I got answer what they think about the subject matter. The
research areas for the data collection were also selected discussing with the project’s staff
who are already working there in MWSDP. They know that who rose what issues and from
where all of the issues can be drawn to generalize for the entire project affected (14 VDCs)
areas. Additionally, cross check method was applied to know the fact information from the
respondent wherever I doubted. The information given in this report represents the fact
information. Moreover, the extracted data from the discussion and interviewee were also
checked through the literature review.
59 | P a g e
Chapter VI
Conclusion and Recommendation
6. Overview of the Chapter
The MWSDP was initiated in 1997 and since that period of time primary stakeholder were
raising different types of social, environmental and economic issues to get maximum
benefits from the project. The MWSDP organized public hearing program in 1998 to assure
the right of local people to be protected. However, the project officials did not fulfill their
own words what was agreed in public hearing program. Therefore, during project
construction phase many types of issues were emerged one after another and transformed
into conflicts. Those issues which were transformed into conflict were related to
compensation, participation and indigenous right. All of these three types of conflicts were
settled down through separate processes.
The research finding shows that lack of primary stakeholder’s participation and consultation
during the project planning and designing phase is the root cause of conflicts between
MWSDP and Primary stakeholder. Additionally, information regarding designed projects was
also not shared by the project officials to the primary stakeholder. As a result frequent
conflicts between MWSDB and primary stakeholder occurred. At first, primary stakeholder
created conflict taking the issues of compensation and when it was managed the issue of
participation was raised. When it was addressed, the issue of indigenous right was
highlighted. The previous two issues (compensation and participation) are common issues
which were raised by the entire project affected VDCs but the issue related to indigenous
right was raised by the upstream inhabitants, the Hyolmo community only. This issue of
indigenous right was also addressed by the MWSDB and finally MWSDB became able to
manage all of three conflicts those were occurred in MWSDP.
6.1 Causes of Conflicts
There are two major causes of conflicts between primary stakeholder and MWSDB. These
are internal (common and specific) and external (common for all). Internal causes include
those particular causes of conflicts which were emerged through the weakness of project
management and behavior and attitude of the project officials and the primary stakeholder.
These internal causes are either common or specific.
6.1.1 Common Causes
1) Lack of stakeholder’s consultation and participation in project planning and designing
phase
2) Lack of information sharing to the primary stakeholder about the designed projects
3) Negative attitude and behavior of the primary stakeholder and project’s staffs towards
project
4) Beginning of the construction work without solving the social economic issues
60 | P a g e
6.1.2 Specific Causes
1) Unsystematic distribution (especially unequal distribution) of the compensation and lack
of good compensation policy are two major causes of conflict of compensation
2) The main causes of conflict of participation include lack of community demand based
projects and lack of information sharing to the primary stakeholder. Other major causes
include stakeholder’s feeling of ownership on river, water and other public resources
3) Indigenous right which emerged since the beginning of project implementation phase but
it was highlighted only after rectifying the ILO convention by Nepalese government in 2007.
6.1.3 External Causes
The external causes are same for all three types of conflicts. The research has found two
major causes under external cause which are shortly described below.
1) Primary stakeholder received external support from WAFED and media. These two
agencies organized awareness program about the national and international policy of
compensation, participation and indigenous rights while implementing the project such as
MWSDP.
2) The instable government is other external cause which triggered the conflicts between
MWSDB and the primary stakeholder. Frequent changes in government lead changes in the
office staffs which ultimately impacted on the project management strategy and project
implementation plan. This changes made delay in project implementation as well as
changed the perception (negative) of primary stakeholder towards the project and its staffs.
6.2 Conflict Management Process
This section describes the conflict management process for three different types of conflicts.
The details processes have been described below.
6.2.1 Conflict Management Process “Compensation”
The stakeholders who involved for the conflict creation were directly affected stakeholder.
The conflict management process was initiated by MWSDP and it was settled through the
negotiation process. In the negotiation process, both conflicting parties (direct affected
stakeholder and representative from MWSDB) were involved in the final decision making
process. In the negotiation process, non-government stakeholders such as project affected
stakeholders and representatives from VDCs were also presence. These stakeholders also
engaged directly in the decision making process to determine the compensation. The final
decision on compensation was made when both parties agreed with each other. Therefore,
in the negotiation process both parties won and the conflict of compensation was settled
permanently.
6.2.2 Conflict Management Process “Participation”
The issue of local participation was raised by the primary stakeholder since the beginning of
project implementation (1997 AD) but their issue was not addressed by the MWSDB and
government. Therefore, immediately after managing the conflict of compensation, the
MWSDP obstructed the project work seriously creating the issue (conflict) of participation.
The main demand of the primary stakeholder was that they wanted their participation in
SUP component from project implementation level to decision making level. This SUP of
61 | P a g e
MWSDP was implemented through DDC (one of the government agency). So, those
stakeholders who were known about the SUP were demanding their involvement in these
projects. They were demanding that the SUP should be implemented through the
community based organization. Therefore, MWSDB and government addressed their issues
of participation using participation tool. The community based committee HSMC was
formed where representative from the project affected areas (14 VDCs) were selected. The
members of the committee were selected from participatory approach. In the selection
process, there is provision of inclusion of every member of the society including vulnerable
groups (women, indigenous, untouchable caste). Similarly, The SUP guideline was prepared
by primary stakeholder themselves with the little assistance of the MWSDB. Therefore,
selection process is very participatory. After forming the HSMC, all of responsibility (project
planning and implementation) of SUP was handed over to the HSMC which made positive
benefits to the primary stakeholder as well as the MWSDP.
6.2.3 Conflict Management Process “Indigenous Rights”
The Hyolmo had created conflict after addressing the issue of participation. They were
demanding different kinds of extra benefits raising the issue of indigenous right. The issue of
indigenous right was highlighted after Nepalese governments rectified the ILO convention
no. 169. The project construction work was obstructed by the Hyolmo community; they
were demanding extra benefits for the welfare of Hyolmo as an indigenous community.
Therefore, MWSDB and MPPW addressed their issues by forming the study team for
assessing their demands and providing recommendations to MPPW. In the study team,
there were government and non-government stakeholder. The team leader and social
scientist were selected from the indigenous community to convince the Hyolmo. Finally, this
study team recommended different programs for the welfare of the Hyolmo. As a result,
they got extra budget (NRs. 4 million) for their cultural conservation and development
projects.
6.3 Recommendations
Recommendations are separated in two parts. First part includes recommendation for
managing the conflict caused by internal characteristics of the project, primary stakeholder
and project officials. Second part includes recommendation for managing the conflict
caused by external factors.
6.3.1 Reccommendations for Conflict Management Caused by Internal Factors
1) The concerned authority has to understand the behavior and attitude of the primary
stakeholder. If their attitude towards project is negative the project officials have to set
some projects to change their attitude and behavior.
2) The responsible authority should provide training to the project’s officials especially fields
staffs and consultant (who work for short period of time) on how to act with the primary
stakeholder to minimize the risk of conflict between project officials and primary
stakeholder.
3) The primary stakeholder should be consulted in project planning and designing phase, so
that their issue and concern can be addressed in the project planning phase.
4) The project officials have to share all of the negative and positive aspects of the projects
to the primary stakeholder before starting the construction or implementation of the
project.
62 | P a g e
5) The projects should be planned with the cooperation and coordination of primary
stakeholder to fulfill their needs. If some of the projects are implemented through other
organization, the project’s officials have to inform to primary stakeholder about the projects
implemented by others.
6) The project’s officials should consider the emotional feelings of the primary stakeholders
towards the natural resource which they are using since many years ago. For example,
ownership of Melamchi River.
7) The project official has to set different social upliftment projects focusing on indigenous
community.
8) The project construction activities should have started only after solving all of the social
and economic issues raised by the primary stakeholder.
9) The compensation should be made according to the principle of equity and equivalence
so that project affected stakeholder can get appropriate compensation for the loss or
damage of their property.
6.3.2 Reccommendations for Conflict Management Caused by External Factors
1) The project officials have to assess the entire stakeholder those are in favor and against
the project. Then after, project official has to make good relation with those stakeholders
who are against the project. The regular advice and feedback collection from such
stakeholders are necessary to implement projects easily.
2) In MWSDP, existing conflicts were also triggered by the unstable government which led
frequent changes of office staffs. The concerned authority can make provision of keeping
permanent staff (at least management level staff) from project planning to project
completion phase to get rid from this problem. In case if project staff changes, same
management strategy should be follow by the new comers.
63 | P a g e
References
 Ansell, C. & Gash, A., 2007. Collaborative Governance in theory and practice. Public
Administrative Research and Theory Advance.
 Asian Development Bank (ADB), 2003. Report and recommendation of the president
to the board of directors on a proposed loan to the Kingdom of Nepal for the
community based water supply and sanitation sector project.
 Bhattarai, M. & Pant, D., 2004 .Local water management institutions and the bulk
intersectoral water transfer: A Case Study of the Melamchi Water Transfer Project in
Nepal. In: IWMI (International water Management Institute), 10th Biennial
Conference of IASCP 2004. Mexico, 9 – 13 August 2004. International water
Management Institute: Colombo, Srilanka.
 Blackman, R., 2003. Project cycle management. London: Tearfund.
 Brown, K. Tompkins, E. & Adger, W. N., 2001. Trade-off analysis for participatory
coastal zone decision-making. Overseas Development Group, Norwich, U.K.
 Burka, S., 2006. Choosing stakeholders a key step in a collaborative Process.
Corder/Thompson & Associates (CTA).
 Consog, 2008. Convening: The Legislator’s Powerful Role. Policy Consensus Initiative,
NCSL Legislative Effectiveness Committee, State Tribal Institute and Women’s
legislative Network.
 De Groot, R.S., M. Stuip, et al (2006). Valuing wetlands: guidance for valuing the
benefits derived from wetland ecosystem services, Ramsar Technical Report No.
3/CBD Technical Series No. 27. Ramsar Convention Secretariat, Gland, Switzerland &
Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Montreal, Canada.
 Denzin, N.K. & Lincoln, Y.S., 1994. Introduction: Entering the field of qualitative
research. In: N.K. Denzin, & Y.S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of Qualitative Research
(pp. 1-17). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
 Dewulf, A., Mancero, M., Cardenas, G. & Sucozhanay, D., 2011. Fragmentation and
connection of frames in collaborative water governance: a case study of river
catchment management in Southern Ecuador. International Review of Administrative
Sciences 77(1) 50–75.
 Emerson, K., Nabatchi, T. & Balogh, S., 2012. An integrative framework for
collaborative governance. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory
Advance [Online] 22 (1-29), pp. 1-30.
Available:
http://jpart.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/05/02/jopart.mur011.full.pdf
[Accessed 12 July 2012]
 Eralieva, M., 2010. Is ADB really accountable? ADB Accountability Mechanism
implementation in Central Asia and Caucasus [1]. NGO Forum on ADB, [Online].
Available at: http://forum-adb.org/inner.php?sec=13&ref=extras&id=197
[Accessed 12 September 2012].
64 | P a g e
 Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 2008. Compulsory acquisition of land and
compensation.
 Ford, S., 2008. Drinking water shortage in Kathmandu Valley [DEMOTIX Website]
Available at: http://www.demotix.com/news/drinking-water-shortages-kathmanduvalley-0
[Accessed 28 April 2012]
 Grimble, R. Wellard, K., 1996. Stakeholder methodologies in natural resource
management: a review of principles, contexts, experiences and opportunities. Paper
Presented at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) NRSP Socioeconomic
Methodologies Workshop, 29–30 April 1996, London.
 HMG & MWSDB, 2008. Annual progress report of Melamchi Drinking Water Supply
Development Project (MWSDP). Nepal: HMG &MWSDB.
 HMG/WECS, 2002. Executive Summary Water Resources Strategy Nepal.
Available at: http://www.moen.gov.np/pdf_files/water_resources_strategy.pdf
 Khatri - Chhetri, J. B., Pant, D., Chapagain, D. P. & D. P. Gartaula, H., 2006. Governance
and Economics of Urban Water Transfer: A Case Study of Melamchi Intersectoral
Water Transfer Project. South Asian Network of Economics Institute (SANEI) and
Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE), Islamabad Pakistan.
 Neale, M. A. & Northcraft, G. B. (1991). Behavioral negotiation theory: A framework
for conceptualizing dyadic bargaining. In L. Cummings & B. Straw, (Eds.). Research in
Organizational Behavior, 13, Connecticut: Jai Press.
 NGO Forum, 2012. ADB Safeguard case study series number 4 controversies continue
to plague the Melamchi Water Supply Project
Available at: http://www.forum-adb.org/BACKUP/pdf/PDF-melamchi/Final%20%20%20Melamchi%20Water%20Supply%20Project.pdf
[Accessed 12 October 2012]
 Ohlendorf, A., 2001. Conflict resolution in project management.
Available at: http://www.umsl.edu/sauterv/analysis/488_f01_papers/Ohlendorf.htm
[Accessed 4 June 2012]
 Pant, D., & Samad, M., 2006. Stakeholder Consultation and Water Governance:
Lessons from the Melamchi Water Transfer Project in Nepal.
 Pant D., Bhattarai, M. & Basnet, G., 2008. Implications of bulk water transfer on local
water management institutions: A case study of the Melamchi Water Supply Project
in Nepal. International Food Policy Research, Institute (IFPRI) [online] 78.
Available at: http://www.melamchiwater.org/home/melamchi-ws-project.php
[Accessed 2 May 2012]
 Pokharel, B., 2006. A Seminar paper on the politics of partnership program: a case
study from income generation and community development program of MWSP. 19th
European conference on modern south Asian studies panel ‘Local Democracy in South
Asia. Leiden, the Netherlands 26-30 June 2006.
 Resettlement Policy, 2002. Nepal: HMG & MWSDB.
65 | P a g e
 Rubin, J. Z. & Brown, B. R. (1975). The Social Psychology of Bargaining and
Negotiation. New York: Academic Press.
 Sharma, B., 2005. An Overview of Environmental law. 1st ed. Nepal: Sajha
Prakhashan.
 Special Facilitator Report, 2004. Report of the special project facilitator on Melamchi
Water Supply Project Nepal, [ Online ].
Available at : http://216.109.65.20/Documents/SPF-Reports/NEP/31624/ReviewReport.pdf
[Accessed 15 September 2012].
 Taylor, K., 2012. Negotiations and resolving conflicts [Online] published in February 5,
2012.
Available at: http://view.koreaherald.com/kh/view.php?ud=20120205000287&cpv=0
[Accessed 15 September 2012].
 Water Resource Act, 2049 B.S. (1992). An act made to provide for the management of
water resources. Nepal: HMG.
 Wertheim, E., 2012. Negotiations and resolving conflicts: An Overview. Northern
University: College of Business Administration.
 Whyte, T., 2010. Stories of Empowerment. Nepal’s Indigenous Community Demands
to be Informed and Heard, May 2010.
Other Documents
 Field Study Report, 2011. Report submitted to Ministry of Physical Planning and
Works (MPPW), MWSDB on assessment of the Demands raised by Hyolmo and lists of
suggested programs for their upliftment.
 Formation of Order, 2010 published by HMG & MWSDB in April 27, 2010.
 Melamchi Diary, 2011.
Webpage
 melamchiwater.org.php
 Wafed.org
Annexes:
Annex 1.1 Focus Group Discussion
Numbers of group: 4
Numbers of participants from each group: more than 10 person in each group
Place: Melamchi\ Helambu
Period of Data Collection: mid - July, 2012
1. General Questions for all three types of conflicts ( compensation, participation and
indigenous right)
1) When did you get information about MWSDP?
a) Preconstruction phase b) construction phase
2) Who informed you about the MWSDP?
a) Office staffs b) outsider
66 | P a g e
3) What did you feel when you heard about the MWSDP?
a) Positive b) negative
If Negative,
3) What was your problem with MWSDP?
a) Social b) environmental c) personnel
4) Did you share your issues/ problems/ opinion with staffs of MWSDB?
Yes ( ) no ( )
If yes, how they respond to you?
Positively ( ) negatively ( )
5) What kinds of issues were raised in MWSDP and which issues were converted into
conflicts?
a) Compensation
b) Participation
c) Indigenous right
6) Are these issues have been managed?
Yes ( ) No ( )
2. Conflict of participation
A. Event Study
1) What are the causes of conflict of participation?
2) When conflict of participation was occurred?
3) Why conflict of participation was occurred?
4) Who created the conflict of participation? Who conducted what types of events
in what time? What was the level of influence (district, national) of those events?
5) How this conflict was managed? ( specific committee members, MWSDB)
a) When did conflict management process started?
b) Who initiated the conflict management process?
c) Who were the stakeholders that invited for the conflict management process?
d) Who were involved in the decision making process? And, how decisions were
made
e) What was the immediate outcome (final decision) of the conflict management
process?
f) What are the impact of outcome of conflict management process on primary
stakeholder and MWSDB?
6) What is your opinion towards the outcome of conflict management process? Are
you satisfied with the solution provided by MWSDB?
7) What is the difference in relation between MWSDP and primary stakeholder?
8) Do you have anything to say about the Participation package?
B. Process study
1) How do you feel that you are participated in project planning and implementation?
67 | P a g e
2) What is the process of selection of members in HSMC?
a) How many members are selected from category of people?
Process of selection for the representatives of HSMC
S.N
Place
Category of people
Ward Village Chief Committee (HSMC)
1
2
3
4
5
6
Women
Indigenous
Untouchable
Local leader
Civil society
MWSDB
total number
b) What is your opinion towards the selection process? Do you think selection process
is fair? What kind of roles and responsibilities are given to whom?
c) What are the benefits primary stakeholder are getting from this participatory
process and overall process of conflict management?
d) Who design the project and how budget is distributed within the village?
e) What is the difference in the level of participation of primary stakeholder in project
designing and implementation before the conflict was occurred and after the conflict
was managed?
f) Are you happy with this participatory approach provided by MWSDB as a solution of
management of conflict of participation?
g) Do you have any suggestion
3.
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
Conflict of Compensation
How did you get information about land acquisition and compensation?
Who informed you about your land acquisition?
What was written in the notice? Does that notice provide you clear information
regarding your land and compensation valuation system? What more information
did you expect in the notice?
What are the positive and negative aspects of the compensation?
Why conflict of compensation was occurred?
When conflict of compensation was occurred and in what level it influenced (district,
national)?
How this conflict was managed?
a) same as question number 5 of A
b) What roles did different types of stakeholder play in the conflict management
process and what was their position in decision making process?
c) Same as 6 to 8 of A
68 | P a g e
4.
1)
2)
3)
4)
Conflict of Indigenous Right
Why did you created conflict in MWSDP taking the issues of indigenous right
When did you hear about the right of indigenous people?
How did you hear? What do you know about the right of the indigenous people?
What kind of demands did you ask to the MWSDB and Nepal government taking the
issues of indigenous right?
5) What events you did to heard your voice by the MWSDB and government?
6) How your issues and demands were addressed?
7) Repeat Question number 5 (a to f) of 2 A
8) What are the impact of outcome of conflict management process on Hyolmo and
MWSDB?
9) What is the difference in social status of Hyolmo after addressing their issues?
10) Repeat question number ( 6 to 8) of 2 A
Annex 1.2 Interview with Committees HSMC and HCC
Name:
Position:
Work experience:
Date:
Place:
1) When this committee did was form?
2) How this committee was formed?
3) What is the objective of the committee?
4) What are the roles and responsibilities of the committee?
5) What is your relation with the MWSDP and primary stakeholder? How do you
coordinate with them?
6) Repeat whole question of B?
7) What is process of budget distribution to each project affected VDCs?
8) How do you approve the projects?
9) What is the monitoring and evaluation mechanism?
10) What is your future plan
11) Is there any extra fund available to this committee?
12) What is your further plan to sustain this committee for long term?
13) What are the key achievements of this committee?
14) Does the selection process for committee member are fair?
15) How did you set the project and implement the project?
16) How did you select or approve the projects
17) How did you distribute the budget
18) What did you see difference between now and then
69 | P a g e
19) How do you involve in decision making process
20) What is your further planning ( water levy)
21) How do you plan to sustain this organization
22) Are there any other funding organization for this project
Annex 1.3 Interview with MWSDP and SSDSC
Name:
Position:
Work experience:
Date of interview :
Place:
A. Project preparation/ design phase General
1) When and how concept of Melamchi water transfer project was conceived? Who
were the key promoters?
2) Who were the stakeholders involved in the project preparation and planning
phase?
3) Who are the financial donors for this project?
4) How local stakeholders have been involved in different phases of project?
5) When local stakeholders did was informed about the project?
i)
Preconstruction phase
ii) Construction phase
6) How did they were informed?
i) Formal
ii) informal
7) What was their response after they were informed about the project?
i)
Positive
ii) Negative
8) Was there any specific roles defined for local stakeholders in different phases of
project?
i) Yes ( )
ii) No ( )
If yes, who were these stakeholders or who counts as local stakeholders?
B. History of conflict and its management process
1) Are there any organizations, individual, etc came against in different phase of in
Melamchi water Supply Project?
i) Yes ( )
ii) No ( )
If yes, who are they?
3) What are the major issues that converted into conflicts in this MWSDP?
4) Why those issues were converted into conflict? And, in what level these conflicts
influence in different level (district level and national level)?
5) What were the demands of the primary stakeholder and how MWSDB addressed it?
How local stakeholders raised or increased their voice?
I)
Local stakeholder themselves (who, specify) ........................
70 | P a g e
II)
Local stakeholder with support of others (whom specify) .......................
6) What kinds of demands are asked by the primary stakeholder?
7) What kind of compensation cases primary stakeholders take in their office? How do
you address those different problems?
8) Do you think that compensation provided by project is enough? I heard that
compensation is not distributed equally, is that true or false, what do you think
about it? If primary stakeholder does not agree with the compensation provided by
office how do you tackle those problems?
9) What are the difficulties did you face in working with the public?
10) What learning experience did you get from the conflict and its management process
in MWSDP?
11) Do you have any suggestion and comments!
Annex 1.4 Lists of Participants for the Interview
Respondent in Melamchi Valley
1. MWSDB
1. Indra Bilash Khanal
Executive Divisional Engineer, MWSDB
2. Bijayaram Lamichhane
Engineer, MWSDB
2. Social Safeguard Development Consultancy SSDS
1. Bashudev Prasaad Baskota
Team Leader
2. Bishwobhakta Kharel
environment officer,
3. Kamal Prasad Dumre
Public relation officer
4. Shiva Dhakal
Resettlement Officer
5. Krishna Prasad Shrestha
Social Mobilizer
6. Surya Kafle
Social Mobilizer
3. Committees
3.1 HSMC
Ganga Bahadur Danuwar, president
1. Shiva Prasad Nepal
Programme Manager
2. Premkrishna Shrestha
Programme Officer
3.2 Melamchi Local Concerned Committee
Balkrishna Deuja
3.3 Hyolmo Local Concerned Committee,
Helambu
Pasang Hyolmo, Urgen Sherpa
Annex 1.5 Lists of stakeholders Used for Data Collection
Group discussion from
Intervie Formal
MWSDP
local level
w with committe
Politica es
l
leaders
71 | P a g e
Minist
ry
Total
number of
group
discussion
and
Farmer
group
discussi
on
Fisherm
an
group
Schoo Political different MWS
l
leaders concerne DB
teach
d
er
Committe
group
es
s
SSDSC
MPPW interview
Consulta
and types
nt
of
stakehold
ers
4
1
2
2
3
3
4
Annex 1.6 Extra benefits for Hyolmo Uplfitment Program (HUP)
S.N. projects
under Funding support for HUP in NRs in
HUP
Nepalese Rupees (NRs)
Nepal
user
total
Government
1.
Toilet
25,00,000
25,00,000
construction
2
Cleaning
in 8,00,000
2,00,000
10,00,000
Helambu VDC
3
4
5
6
7
Infrastructure
30,00,000
5,00,000
35,00,000
development for
higher school
Hyolmo hospital 24,00,000
6,00,000
30,00,000
construction
Hyolmo museum 140,00,000
10,00,000 15,000,000
construction
Ambulance
for 25,00,000
25,00,000
Hyolmo
Village
road 11,400,000
21,00,000 1,35,00,000
construction
total
3,59,00,000
41,00,000 4,00,00,000
[Currency Exchange: NRs. 112.06128 = 1 Euro]
The End
72 | P a g e
1
20
Implementation
agencies
Implementation by
MWSDP
water and sewerage
department
and
MWSDP
MWSDP/ education
department
MWSDP/
and
ministry of health
MWSDP
MWSDP
MWSDP/road
department
4 0,00,0,000