From Pashupati Shumsher Rana during the Panchayat period, to the interim government after the multi-party system, the Congress government, and the UML government's Water Resources Minister Pradeep Nepal, no one said that Arun was not needed. But they were also unable to secure Arun's investment and move forward with the construction.

Pradeep Nepal was the seventh water resources minister to look into Arun's file. Locals affected by the project had also started saying, 'We want a decision on whether the project will come or not.' In particular, we need a motorway.'

When they were in opposition, leftist parties including UML and national/international organizations raised the most voices that the construction of the Arun road would damage the environment. That is why locals had also started raising the question of why the environment would not be damaged by the construction of the Basantapur-Khandwari road but only by the construction of the Arun road.

The World Bank was the main lender to the Arun III Hydropower Project, which aims to generate 402 megawatts of electricity in two phases. There was also opposition to the World Bank's loan in Nepal. After the change of 1991, the government had introduced a policy to attract private sector investment in electricity production. But when the Congress led the government, the main opposition party UML and NGO/INGO protested from the streets to the parliament regarding the construction of the Arun project, so even the World Bank was in doubt whether to invest in the loan.

Despite repeated discussions and numerous visits by World Bank officials to Nepal, a decision could not be made. When the World Bank inspection team arrived in Kathmandu on 14 Jestha 2052 to investigate Arun, locals, anti-Arun activists and stakeholders organized a discussion in Kathmandu the day before to make their views public.

Gopal Siwakoti Chintan of the International Foundation for Human Rights, Environment and Development (Inherited International), known as an anti-Arun activist, was protesting the Arun issue saying that it was not transparent. He had said, ‘UML used to talk about transparency when it was in opposition, but its style is similar to that of yesterday (Congress government).’

The then Water Resources Minister Hari Pandey had visited the US and lobbied to reduce the cost of Arun. Issues like environmental degradation, bursting of glaciers, bank loans not being in the national interest, and Arun not helping to raise the living standards of the locals were repeatedly raised.

On the other hand, a report prepared for the US aid agency USAID stated that there was no danger of any disaster including the explosion of glaciers.

Maurice Herzog of Switzerland, known as the man of the mountains, had prepared the report after visiting the Arun Valley. Herzog had stated that the distance between the proposed dam of the Arun project and the Barun glacier was 50 km and that there would be no disaster from the glacier. He had mentioned in his report that he had also studied it from a helicopter on 23 April 1995. He had also said that he had studied it while going to the Makalu Barun base camp in the 2038/039 decade.