During the process of reviewing the Resettlement Action Plan (RAP) for the 900MW Arun 3 hydropower project in late 2016, the Office of the Investment Board of Nepal (OIBN) was confronted with a dichotomy of whether to allow the developer SAPDC to opt for cash compensation to replace the loss of private assets or to explore the possibility of in-kind compensation. The reasons for the dichotomy: The census survey conducted in August 2015 revealed that almost all the project affected people desired cash compensation for their impacted assets. It is because most people wanted to use the cash compensation to escape the hardship of life in the remote mountains and instead move to nearby towns or the southern plains to have better access to basic services. On the other hand, some policymakers, alarmed by stories of families displaced by hydropower projects, were reluctant to the idea of cash compensation. The argument put forward was that a majority of the poor, displaced families ended up being destitute, landless and in a worse condition than before mainly due to misuse of the cash compensation they received from the project.