3 November 2021, Kathmandu
Indigenous Tamang and other locals of Shankharapur municipality in the northeast of Kathmandu affected by the Tamakoshi-Kathmandu 200/400 kV Transmission Line and its Bojheni substation today submitted a memorandum to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) Nepal Resident Mission. They have called for realignment of the Transmission Line and shifting of the sub-station from their settlement area as planned under the ADB-financed Electricity Transmission Expansion and Supply Improvement Project.
In the memorandum emailed to the ADB with signatures of more than 200 affected locals, the Upper Tamakoshi Hydropower Project Victims’ Struggle Society has alleged that they have not been adequately informed about the impacts of the Transmission Line and the sub-station and the land acquisition has been undertaken through intimidation of the landowners. The construction of the Transmission Line and its sub-station has been halted for the last two years due to the opposition of the locals. They allege that the Project is seeking to construct the Bojheni substation in an unauthorized manner without agreement of the locals. Further, the Transmission Line running over their houses, lands and religious and cultural sites will devaluate their properties, significantly affect their livelihoods dependent on agriculture and tourism as well as the environment and even cause insecurity to their health and lives, which will eventually displace them from their ancestral lands and settlement.
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