Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dhal, better known as Prachanda, visited the Tehri Dam on Friday in the wake of a fresh move to develop the long pending 6,000 mw Pancheshwar Dam that is to be built jointly by India and Nepal. Prachanda went to the 2,400 mw Tehri Dam site to study the various aspects of the hydel project and said that Nepal would seek India’s co-operation in tapping its own hydropower resources.

Later, at Dehradun, Prachanda met Uttarakhand Chief Minister B C Khanduri, and said that the purpose of his visit was to study the feasibility of building big dams in Nepal.

The Rs 30,000 crore Pancheshwar Dam, which is proposed on the river Mahakali on Uttarakhand-Nepal border, has a lot of similarities with Tehri Dam. Prachanda’s visit to Uttarakhand is being regarded as another step towards the building of Pancheshwar dam, which was hanging fire for more than a decade in the wake of political instability in Nepal.

On the issue of Indo-Nepal relations, the Nepalese PM said, “There has been a political change in Nepal and now there will be a developmental change.”