Energy and Livelihood: Exploring the Linkage between Micro Hydro Power and Marginalized People in Rural Nepal

Abstract

The micro hydropower has been one of the most promising and commonly adopted decentralized technologies among the renewable energy in the global scenario and in Nepal too as it provides a renewable, sustainable and clean source of energy to its users. The existing literatures have argued that Micro Hydro Power (MHP) has contributed to the assets of livelihood of rural and disadvantaged people. With the intensive review of literatures related to renewable energy and livelihood, MHP and livelihood; the study identifies the gaps in the state of existing knowledge towards the rural marginalized peoples and guided to formulate appropriate research problem, research objectives and hypothesis. In this context, this study explores the linkage whether the assets of livelihood of rural marginalized people have been changed or not after the establishment of MHP from the livelihood perspective. It examines the practices of governance of MHP in the whole process of construction, power distribution, sustainable management and benefit sharing mechanism for the focused rural marginalized peoples i.e. poor, disadvantaged, Dalits, women, ethnic groups etc. from the good governance perspective. Further the study evaluates the policy of government on the MHP development in Nepal. Three MHP projects of three districts were selected on the basis of geographical differentiation employing the purposive sampling technique i.e. Phak Phok MHP of Ilam from the Eastern part, Kumpur MHP of Dhading from the Central part and Pachuwa Khola MHP of Baglung from the Western part of Nepal. The study has adopted the theoretical framework of ‘Theory of Practice’ and ‘Sustainable Livelihood’ which assert the dialectical relationship between structure and agency. According to the research problem, the conceptual framework and the nature the study has designed guided to adopt mix research approach as it gives the detail information of stipulated research questions substantially.