Energy Water Resources and Irrigation Minister Deepak Khadka and India's Water Power Minister CR Patil have discussed about moving Pancheshwar forward. Minister Khadka, who reached India's New Delhi to participate in the 'India Energy Week-2025', said that in a meeting with his counterpart Patil on Thursday, it was agreed to proceed with the project after finalizing the detailed project report (DPR) of the Pancheswar multi-purpose project.

Prabal Adhikari, a senior energy expert of the Ministry of Energy, said that the construction of the link canal from Tanakpur to the Nepal-India border has been completed. Officials who participated in the meeting told that after finalizing the water management procedures, it was agreed to release water according to the Mahakali Treaty. He said that there was also an agreement to send formal correspondence from the ministry regarding the 14th meeting of the Joint Committee on Flood and Inundation Management to be held from March 22 to 24.  In the

meeting, India's Water Power Minister Patil said that India is positive to finalize the DPR of the Pancheswar project and move the project forward quickly. Earlier in May 2080, during the then Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal's visit to India, it was agreed to complete the Pancheshwar DPR within three months. But so far Nepal and India have not reached an agreement on DPR. 

In the fifth meeting of the Group of Experts (TOE) last time, the DPR of Pancheswar was discussed but no consensus was reached, according to an energy expert. He said that there has been no discussion since then. "It has been agreed to finalize the DPR in the sixth meeting of the upcoming expert group," he said. After that, the expert group meeting held in New Delhi, India on July 5-6, 2080 agreed to give instructions to submit the revised report within 15 days and to finalize the DPR within 21 days.

Although the expert group instructed to submit within 15 days, the Indian company Wapcos Limited took about two months to submit the revised report. Soon after, the meeting held in Kathmandu on October 19 and 20, 2080 failed to reach an agreement on the DPR. Since then, there has been no discussion so far, said the energy expert official of the ministry. 

According to the ministry, there are only two-three problems in Pancheshwar's DPR. An official related to the ministry said that there was no agreement on water rights, benefits and shares. "There is no agreement on how much water will benefit India and how much Nepal will benefit," the official said, "Whatever India has studied, it is not fair." We have taken out a figure and presented it to India as the benefits of energy, water, flood control and irrigation from Pancheswar.' 

Pancheshwar multi-purpose project has been stalled for 29 years due to the failure to reach an agreement on DPR between Nepal and India. The Mahakali Treaty of 2052 has not yet progressed. The then Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and the then Prime Minister of India PV Narsingh Rao signed an agreement on 29th January 2052 regarding Sarada Barrage, Tanakpur Barrage and Pancheshwar on the Mahakali River.

After the Mahakali Treaty, the process of jointly building the Pancheswar multi-purpose project with bilateral investment began. The then Parliament approved the Mahakali Treaty in October 2053 and approved the agreement to build a project in Pancheswar. It was agreed that both would invest in the

project on the basis of water usage, according to which it was mentioned that about 65 percent Indian and 35 percent Nepalese investment would be. At that time, it was estimated that the project would cost 3 billion US dollars. As long time has passed since the contract was signed, the actual cost has not been worked out.

There is no consensus between the two countries on the question of how much to invest in the Pancheshwar project. Since India will benefit more from irrigation, Nepal's position is that it should invest more. India's stance is that both countries should bear the agreed share of the total cost of the project without considering the benefits. It has been agreed on the visit of Energy Minister Khadka to speed up Pancheshwar, which has not been completed for 29 years.

When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Nepal for the first time in 2071, he said in the Parliament that Pancheshwar would be completed within 5 years. I promise, within a year, the work of this project with a production capacity of 5,600 megawatts will be started. You cannot even imagine how much service Nepal will get from this. As much electricity as Nepal has now, it will be produced 6 times more than that," he said. In point number 19 of the joint statement issued after the meeting with Modi during Prime Minister Dahal's visit to India in August 2073, it is mentioned that Pancheshwar will be completed as soon as possible.

In the statement issued by Dahal after returning to Nepal, it was stated that "both parties have agreed to study the DPR of the Pancheshwar multi-purpose project and finalize it". When Indian Prime Minister Modi visited Nepal in July 2071, he promised in the Parliament that the Pancheshwar DPR would be completed within 1 year and the project within 5 years. The then Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba raised the issue of Pancheshwar again during his visit to India in August 2074. During Deuba's visit, it was agreed that the DPR would be completed within a month.

In March 2074, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli visited India with Pancheshwar as his main agenda. During the SAARC conference, when Indian Prime Minister Modi visited Nepal for the second time, the issue of Pancheshwar was informally raised again. Pancheshwar was also on the agenda when Modi came to Nepal in Baisakh 2075 to lay the foundation stone of the Arun-3 hydropower project being built with the investment of the Indian company Sutlej Jalvidyut Nigam (ACJVN).