A project called 'Lower Erkhuwa Hydropower (14.15 MW)' located in Shadanand municipality in Bhojpur District of Province No. 1 went through the conflict with the affected Indigenous and local communities for the past 6 months.
The reason behind this conflict is the non compliance with the fundamental rights of the people to environment, property, culture, lands and resources that are provisioned under the constitution and international laws relating to Indigenous Peoples.
"The project is causing serious destruction in our settlements due to the dam and tunnel construction. The water resources that are used for drinking and irrigating our farm land are disappearing. Sacred water stream that is worshiped by the Rai Indigenous community to receive rainfall in farming season is disappearing due to the tunnel work that is happening underneath of the village"
The Rai Indigenous communities residing in the affected village have a belief system that the rainfall occurs when they worship that water stream in the farming season.
"The houses in the village are cracked and land surfaces are damaged due to the explosions carried out while tunneling. The Initial Environment Examination (IEE) Report of the project was wrongly done. The village that lies right above the tunnel was not put as an affected area in the report. The public hearing was not done with affected communities. No Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) was obtained, no participation of affected communities in the project cycle was upheld" , said the affected communities.
The affected communities carried out a protest for 7 days against the maladministration of the project but ended up with an agreement on 19 March 2023.
The project agreed to obtain consent by redoing the IEE and redress the harms and address community's concerns through the IEE process. The communities provided 15 days of time limitation to initiate the IEE process.
"We will carry out strong protests against if the project is reluctant to implement the agreement ", said a community leader who is leading the community movement.
