Tender call for BPC re-biding tomorrow

By a Post Reporter

KATHMANDU, Aug 19 - Privatization cell, Ministry of Finance is announcing tender for re-bidding of 30-mega watt Butwal Power Company (BPC) Monday.

The ministry is inviting tender for re-bidding about eight months after it cancelled the first bidding December last year.

It has made an important change in the tender this time. The earlier tender entertained bids only from investors with an operating experience of at least 30-mega watt hydropower project.

As none of the Nepali investors have such experience, the condition, in effect, barred the prospective local investors from bidding in one of the most lucrative privatization offer so far.

Due to this relaxation, officials at the ministry are hoping that both locals as well as foreign investors will be encouraged to register their bids.

The earlier bidding process was cancelled at the final stage amid strong allegation by Independent Power Company (IPC), a British-American power producer, which charged the ministry of 'deliberate irregularities' in favor of Interkraft, the only rival bidder for IPC.

BPC is one of the few state-owned profit making enterprises with net annual profits of over 220 million rupees.

The annual profit is likely to shoot up after the operation of 60-mega watt Khimti Hydropower Project this year, in which it holds 15 percent stake.

April fool! Dear neighbour Farewell to big states! Have you ever thought how quickly the power of once mighty state is shrinking? The state in terms of its control over people is growing so weak that if the French King Luis IV was alive today he would, perhaps no more roar "I am State".

The modern state has become victim of precisely three sets of changes: technological progress, globalization and devolution.

Ironically, it was the state, which has contributed most to the development of technology, especially till the first half of the 20th century. But no one knew that technology would so enormously contribute to limiting the power of state. When John Guttenberg invented the printing press, people's first impression of it was simply of "a noisy machine?" But no one had foreseen that it would give rise to a "noisy print media" that would work so effectively to silence the atrocities of the state.

And, what about the television? Back in 1948 when Americans watched a live coverage of the Republican Party's convention on television, they might have thought they have reached the edge. But at the dawn of the twenty-first century, they didn't only watch live the conventions on television but also in the Internet. The dot com revolution is a giant step towards limiting the power of state. It is forcing the once opaque states to become transparent and days are not far away when the states will be forced to go nude.

The two other forces - globalization and devolution - are greatly shaving off the influence of the state from top and bottom. Many people skip the fact that until few years' back international resources were only a privilege of the state. Today a bright entrepreneur can compete and beat the state for financial resources abroad. Globalization is also offering so many choices to the people that state can no more enforce monotony. And it is hitting hard on the maneuverability of the state. While formulating any domestic policies, the state has to take into account the international practices and policies.

Another challenge is mounting against the state form the bottom. Demand for devolution (not decentralization) of power to the local authorities may sound new and weak so far in the developing countries but it will soon become a force to be reckoned with. Have you noticed the experiment with devolution in Britain, the mother of modern democracy?

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"Effort to adjust price works only like a string; it can only pull up the price but cannot push it down," wrote Milton Friedman, a leading American economist from the monetarist school of thought. Nothing else fits exactly than the example of the recent movement in the international oil prices. The international prices of crude oil declined to as low as US $ 10 per barrel March last year. The international media reporting on "drowning with cheap oil" quickly soared up the crude oil prices to over US Dollar 30 per barrel within few months. Remember? The Economist even reported on the threat of the return of Depression if the oil price continued to decline.

But now, when the price has shot up unsustainably high, media decries fail to impress OPEC - the international oil cartel - to pull down the price. Even American (the largest petroleum consumer) threat to pump in oil from its emergency reserves fails to impress the cartel. Venezuelan President Chavez, during his last week's trip to OPEC member countries said he would not succumb to international pressure for oil price slash. It was a "death penalty," said Chavez, describing the low oil price last year. Chavez will you remember the First and Second Oil Shocks that poisoned the third world economies to death?

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"India fooled us on SAD," goes a common complaint among the bureaucrats and the businessmen against India these days. That's true. On the first place, the Special Additional Duty (SAD) was against the spirit of the Nepal India Trade Treaty. But the Indian Babus fooled Nepali officials and almost convinced them that SAD wasn't an infringement upon the treaty since it said nothing about the additional duty.

Later on, they fooled the Prime Minister during his visit to India by convincing him that they were removing SAD as a special favour to Nepal.

But Indian is yet to lift SAD. Now the Indian customs is fooling us saying they wouldn't remove it unless they received directive from Delhi.

Perhaps, it was our mistake that we couldn't understand Indians, otherwise they had clearly hinted us of their intention by enforcing SAD on APRIL FOOL day.

NPC to make ICT Policy and Strategy public

By a Post Reporter

KATHMANDU, Aug 19 - National Planning Commission (NPC) is going to organize a national stakeholders' workshop to publicly discuss on the draft of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Policy and Strategy, drafted by NPC.

The draft focuses more on strategy since the IT policy, drafted by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) that focuses more on policy aspect, are planned to be merged to make the policy more comprehensive, says one of the drafters of ICT Policy and Strategy preferring anonymity.

While drafting the ICT Policy and Strategy, NPC had carried out six researches central to human resource development, information and communications infrastructures, e-commerce/e-service, e-governance, software production and universal access to information in order to make the draft as comprehensive as possible.

International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Canada has funded the NPC project to draft the ICT Policy and Strategy.

In keeping with the fast changing trend in the IT sector, the draft has incorporated immediate and long term strategies, says the source. "Though we are lagging behind exploiting the potential, we are not too late to bring out the IT policy."

Though information technology has become synonymous with transparency, our policy makers have failed to live up to its spirit as the Ministry of Science and Technology neither posted its IT draft policy on website nor sought to solicit the views of a wide array of IT experts and professionals while drafting it.

India, Pakistan and Mozambique had put their respective IT draft policy on websites in order to get feedback from a larger section of concerned people.

"Our policy makers, who still hold decade-old mentality, try their best to avoid providing such drafts to the press before they officially launch them. Let alone posting them on websites. But they should learn the lessons of transparency from those countries," said the source.

It is high time that the Ministry of Science and Technology put the combined draft of its own with that of the NPC on website to improve the draft policy and initiated transparency prior to giving it a final shape. MoST cannot afford ignoring the incorporation of the NPC draft, he said.

Moreover, the policy makers should also be aware of making timely amendments to policies and strategies, with special focus on the fastest changing IT sector. And the people in the know should also pressurize the government for it.

NPC is going to publish the draft in a booklet form and put it on its website to receive feedback from a wider range of people so that it could minimize problems that may arise in future and cover more areas that might have slipped from the drafters' notice.

HAN delegation leaves for China

By a Post Reporter

KATHMANDU, Aug 19 - On the occasion of 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Nepal and the Republic of China, a 30-member delegation left for China at the invitation of the Chinese Ministry of Culture today.

The delegation is led by Narendra Bajracharya, president of Hotel Association Nepal (HAN), states a press release issued here today.

According to the release, various cultural and musical shows will be organized at different Chinese cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, with a view to promote better understanding and tourism ties between the two countries.

Various other activities, with the support of Hilton Hotel, have also been planned, says the release.

The delegates will also promote Nepal as potential tourism destination for the Chinese.

China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) is to organize an interaction program, in which prominent Chinese tourism experts and journalists, among others, are taking part, according to the release.

The release says that the main agenda of the visit would be to embellish the existing mutual efforts of the two countries in promoting tourism ties, for which the two sides would also come up with a joint strategy.

In keeping with the recent declaration of Nepal as an outbound destination for Chinese tourists by the State Council of the Republic of China recently, this visit will provide an impetus to growth of the tourism industry in both countries, the release says.