While the project is aimed at developing Nepal’s hydropower potential in an environmentally and socially sustainable way and bringing electricity to rural areas, it has been criticised for neglecting the rights of local indigenous people. Indigenous representatives claim that the project was started without consultation and without assessing the potential health, environmental, social, religious, and cultural impacts on the communities.
It is not that Nepali indigenous people oppose development projects in general, assure the Lawyers' Association for Human Rights of Nepalese Indigenous People (LAHURNIP) - they simply demand that such projects abide by national and international legal and policy frameworks.