Use existing technology

That waste management has generated more problems than solutions has always been clear. Unfortunately, the reason for this is that the Kathmandu Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) blames the government for not allowing it to collect revenues, and vice versa. As a result, heaps of garbage on the main thoroughfares continue to pile up day after day. However, the crucial question is why all municipalities in the Kathmandu Valley have never thought of utilizing new and existing technologies to manage the ever-increasing waste problem.

The government and KMC find themselves squabbling over who should collect the revenues instead of managing the garbage effectively. They have made this a political issue that has provided no effective solution. The selection of a permanent dumping site has become a daunting challenge to KMC. And the waste management technology, which should have been used, has been lying unused on KMC premises for years. The plant, which produced compost manure, has been closed down due to political pressure for the last decade.

The sale of manure to farmers at a low cost and the lack of profit have been cited as reasons compelling the plant to shut down. Such populism has served to mess up the waste management system rather than coming up with proper waste management solutions. This is a mere justification that ignores what the government and KMC have failed to do. If KMC, with the help of the government had repaired the compost plant for operation, things would certainly have improved considerably.

It is high time that the government and KMC realized how to use the new and existing technologies to derive usable materials from the garbage produced in urban areas. This will not only benefit the farmers, as in case of manure, but also others, provided a study is conducted to utilize the waste products. Such technology is available internationally and it is the duty of our policymakers to use it to improve the waste management system. A significant number of jobs could have been created if the government had realized this benefit. Also, recycling technology cuts down on the demand of raw materials for such daily use items such as papers, plastics and even metals. The government should not stall in using new technology for waste management.

Lack of proper knowledge about the new technology has hampered government progress on waste management. The use of newer machinery and related technology must be introduced and the existing resources must be fully utilized. Only then can the urban areas clean up the garbage problem. Now it is up to the authorities to decide and act accordingly.

Poverty alleviation : Need for critical assessment

By Ram Bahadur KC

It is accepted that Nepal's overriding development challenge is widespread poverty. This problem has posed a big challenge. Experts and socio-economists, both native and foreign, have spoken about the seriousness and magnitude of the problem. They have drawn attention of the politicians and planners about the imminent crisis associated with poverty. Rising insecurity, Maoist insurgency, revolting mood of the so-called emancipated Kamaiyas, demand for separate self-identity of the Janajatis, the ethnic conflicts, forced religious conversions, etc are some of the emerging incidents of poverty and its widespread prevalence.

Magnitudes of the poverty have been found varied according to the different studies and time dimension. The Eighth Plan estimated 49 percent of the population lived below the absolute poverty line and made its target to bring it down to 42 percent. The Ninth Plan made a policy target to bring it to 32 percent. For the first time a study of Income Distribution, Employment and Consumption Pattern carried out by the National Planning Commission (NPC) in 1976 had estimated that 36 percent of the total population lived below the poverty line. A Household Budget Survey done by Nepal Rastra Bank in 1989 revealed 41.5 percent of the population living below the poverty line. Again the Living Standard Survey of Nepal conducted by the Central Bureau of Statistics in 1996 showed that the size of population below poverty line was 42 percent of which 24 percent as poor and 17.1 percent as to be ultra-poor.

The intensity of the poverty is still greater in the mountains with 56 percent as against 41 and 42 percent in the hills and the Terai. Thus, not only that there are statistical differences as for different sources and bases, but also the terminology used as poverty- absolute poverty, poor, and ultra-poor are somewhat confusing to many except to the economic pundits as whether they are synonyms or antonyms of nature of poverty and its measurement.

Objectives of the current Plan (1997-2002) are to gradually raise the living standard of the people below poverty line, to uplift the living standard of the ultra-poor by launching special area and targeted programmes, economically empowering the backward and deprived communities and to reduce concentration of the existing poverty in the backward and remote areas by developing physical, social and economic infrastructures. The on-going Ninth Plan has also envisaged a twenty-year long-term plan of reducing poverty by targeting a 32 percentage decline from 42 percent of the population living below the poverty line to 10 percent by the end of 2017 AD.

The major strategies of the Ninth Plan have been designed to direct all development activities to poverty alleviation, programmes to be continuous and sustainable, implementing multi-sectoral programmes in the integrated way, special measures to be taken for creating employment, women empowerment and decentralization to be pushed forward as inseparable component of poverty alleviation.

As for poverty alleviation, various sectoral programmes such as employment generation, manpower development and development of agriculture, forests, infrastructure and social services have been suggested. Similarly, various programmes targeted at such deprived groups like ethnic and downtrodden groups, landless rural family, small landholders, urban poor and unemployed have been outlined. Likewise, the Ninth Plan envisages Poverty Alleviation Commission for research programmes, formulation and evaluation, Poverty Alleviation Fund to direct activities for the fulfilment of the needs of the poor communities and Poverty Monitoring System to regularly monitor poverty alleviation activities and impact of such programmes.

Presently, various targeted national programmes like remote area and specific area development programmes, Production Credit for Rural Women, Small Farmers Development Programme, special programmes for the Kamaiyas (bonded labour), Dalits (oppressed), Jagriti (empowerment programme for women and the poor) are in operation. Poverty alleviation programmes are now going to be launched in other eight selected districts under the joint sponsorship of NPC, Ministry of Local Development and UNDP. It is learnt that various I/NGOs have jointly launched such poverty alleviation and local development programmes.

Though poverty alleviation programmes have been highlighted from the inception of the Seventh Plan, the Ninth Plan has put special thrust and made it a central focus of the planning development. Provided all these could have been implemented, the poor and marginal people would have great consolation for being more or less relieved from the vicious clutches of poverty. The big question is ‘have they been all or partially implemented?’ As the NPC is right now doing the mid-term evaluation, the picture may soon be publicized for the people as a benchmark for formulating the proposed strategy paper for the incoming Tenth Plan, let us hope the evaluation report may present a rosy picture.

But the shadows hanging over the time horizon of more than a half of the plan period could have affected the proper implementation and achievements of targets. Intraparty clash, political squabbles, horse-trading for power, rampant corruption, feeble attempts for crackdown, Maoist insurgency, growing insecurity, diversion of valuable resources for sham security and patch development works must have hampered the smooth functioning of the targeted programme. Also, development programmes including poverty alleviation have frequently been subject to political interference and domination. Sometimes, programmes and projects have also been more politically bargained than could be fitted on the basis of feasibility in macro plan framework as outlined by NPC, micro-projects are often being divorced from macro level objectives and strategies, chiefly during the pre- and post budget session. Appropriate mechanism has still to be developed and unanimously adopted between planning and implementation.

The role of I/NGOs in the network of civil society could have been made very crucial in making various activities of local development, especially people oriented and extending skills, services and facilities to the grassroots level to help poverty alleviation in the backward and remote areas. It is estimated that more than 30,000 NGOs (800 of them development oriented) are working in the various parts of the country and they have had to be motivated to work as facilitators vis-a-vis local institutions like District Development Committees, Village Development Committees, educational institutions and various community organisations and societies. But do we expect that they are functioning the way in the absence of proper coordination and monitoring mechanism?

It is not known whether any appropriate mechanism has been developed for positively evaluating, monitoring and supporting their works, scope and their role, through Social Welfare Council or the ministry concerned. If so, could our government or NPC or any other appropriate agency or authority has identified some successful models among the I/NGOs of our civil society and prescribe them as a replication of the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh which Prof Yunus made a model for the upliftment of the rural poor, especially the women?

Nightmare inside movie hall

By Hitesh Karki

"Vivek, goddamn how could you be depart so early...?".

Sorry folks for this abrupt start but every time I look at a picture of Vivek, hanging on my wall, I invariably end up saying so to my self. As I was about to scribble some thoughts on the paper, my eyes just fell on the same picture. However this has nothing to do with Vivek.

Last Saturday, some of my friends decided to go for a movie. Well, honestly speaking, it was for the first time I was going to one of many newly built (3 in 1) cineplexes. So I was feeling quite exited about the whole thing. We reached there quite early, but to our surprise the counters were already closed (don’t know whether it was the outcome of tech revolution - online booking- or simply the nexus between the hall owners and the "blacksters". A little later we found out that the reason, it was the latter reason, tickets were being sold outside in huge numbers, at higher rates.

As we entered the hall, I felt as if I was entering a war-zone. I could not fathom why people were in such a great hurry to pay for their seats before the movie begun. We waited for sometime.

But for us , it took quite a lot of time before we managed to enter inside. As a result, the movie had already begun.

We just stood like statues since we could not figure out our seats due to the darkness.

Finally, a man with a dim torch in his hand arrived and guided us towards our seats. The spacing between the two rows was such that there was no way we could reach our seats without stepping on a person’s feet or knocking their heads with our elbows, almost as if on a battle!

After a while I asked my friend whether he wanted to have a Pepsi. The thought was not due to thirst, but merely because the movie was turning out to be a big bore and the side exit was just next to my seat. As I stood to push open the door, a gentleman told me it was locked from outside.

A surge of fear suddenly began to run down my spine. "The door’s locked from outside..", those words haunted me. As I looked around, (by that time the eyes had adjusted to the darkness), I could not see a single fire extinguisher in sight. That only increased my fear.

Why Vivek...? you must be wondering .Well folks, he was a close friend who had had the most horrible of deaths. Burnt to ashes in the infamous "Upahaar Cinema Fire" while I was studying in Delhi.

While everyone was busy enjoying the movie there I was with all sorts of thoughts spinning in my head.

The safety norms were then strictly followed there, after the accident. "How about us...still waiting for something like that...?" So that’s the way we are, seeking ways to cure things rather than trying to find ways of preventing them from happening at the first place (and that applies to everything if you understand what I mean.....). I was trying to find an answer to the question, albeit in vain.

FM radio and new urban communities

By Pratyoush Onta

In this column I highlight FM radio communities and discuss their significance for the new urban public sphere. Why highlight these communities some of which are imagined at best? What have they got to do with the new contours of our urban life? As will be clear from the examples discussed below, FM radio is not only what goes on air. It is as much what happens off air. If the programmes aired are engendering a new public sphere, then the communities that produce them and the communities, in turn, produced by them are important elements of that sphere. The skills, intentions and desires of
these communities define for us some of the broad contours of our own experience of our cities.

First in the list of real communities is FM owning institutions. While Radio Sagarmatha is owned by a NGO, commercial companies own Kantipur FM, K.A.T.H. FM, HBC FM, Hits FM, and Manakamana FM (in Hetauda). Locally elected government bodies own Metro FM in Kathmandu and Radio Madanpokhara in Palpa. Radio Lumbini is owned by a cooperative. Companies, cooperatives, local governments and NGOs are real institutional communities that have taken up the new challenge of managing a FM station (this variety in ownership is an important indication of the pluralism possible in radio in Nepal). The stations might not have all the skills necessary for optimum operation but they are certainly learning on air. Off-air they have even tried promotionals such as blood drives, child health camps, music awards and anti-pollution campaigns to bolster their on-air image.

The group of programme producers who either work as freelancers or are employed by various FM stations comprises the second real community.

When talk about establishing FM radio stations began some seven years ago, many wondered where the people who would run these stations would be found. That worry was genuine but exaggerated. After all, we have found the people -- programme producers, technical experts, reporters, talk show hosts, and music jockeys -- indigenously, however inadequate their present skills might be. Apart from individual producers, we also now have institutional programme producers. For instance, Communication Corner headed by Gopal Guragain in Kathmandu currently produces a half-hour programme called "Kayakairan" that is simultaneously broadcast over the three FM radio stations in Madanpokhara, Manigram (near Butwal) and Hetauda, three times a week. Its aim is "to bring listeners from outside the Valley emotionally close to the centre by providing them up-dates on happenings in Kathmandu."

The third real community comprises of a different type of producers--lyricists, musicians, singers and others related to the music industry. They have benefited from the FM boom, as there are now more outlets for their creations. Equally the stations can choose from a larger pool of talent.

The fourth real community comprises of a few FM activists. The Community Radio Support Centre (headed by Raghu Mainali) of NEFEJ provides support to any institution interested in opening a community radio station. The Centre will do feasibility studies for them and give hands-on training to programme producers. Communication Corner, the Centre for Development Communication, Nepal Press Institute and some other organizations have done research on different aspects of FM and have produced some useful manuals. Mainali has also filed a writ at the Supreme Court challenging rules imposed by the government on FM stations that, according to him, violate the Constitution of
Nepal and the National Broadcasting Act 2049. If the Court agrees with him, it will become easier to establish and run FM stations.

FM radio has also given birth to new imagined or transient communities whose own importance can not be underestimated. Constituents of these imagined communities come in two forms. First are news communities: people and institutions that are interested in having news about their activities broadcast over radio and people who listen to such broadcasts. In examining my incomplete records, I was surprised to find just how many members of this community sent news of various happening to Radio Sagarmatha’s "Halchal" programme during Srawan/Bhadra 2056 BS.

The second imagined community consists of listeners of specific programmes. Think about the dedicated fan of Upendra Aryal’s "Bihani Yatra" or Kalyan Gautam’s "Mero Katha, Mero Geet". He is by himself. But he knows that, at that very moment, there are many others listening to the same programme. He will never meet most of them, yet he will feel like he is one with them -- an imagined community of the sort that has been made famous in social science parlance by Benedict Anderson. FM radio has created many such imagined communities of fans of particular stations, specific programmes or their hosts.

At times a letter of praise or complaint against the host for being partisan toward other members of the imagined community breaches the anonymity, but it is never seriously done. On other occasions, such imagined communities become a bit more real when, for instance, some FM fans went to Sundarijal for a picnic to celebrate the new year 2000, or fans of Prakash Sayami’s programme on ‘eternal Nepali songs' met to discuss their common interest. Faces were put to known voices heard over the airwaves but the community was a transient one at best. The fans soon returned to living their own individual friendships with FM. As critic C K Lal described it nearly three years ago, FM is a good friend to have in the city when families consist of atomized individuals.

Management, production, training, researches, publication and support skills that have been developed in the context of FM radio are important assets not only for the field of media but also for urban life and Nepali society at large. Many of these skills have been transferred from other professions and they in turn will be passed on to other trades. Whatever might be their trajectories, the communities that possess them are real and they are here to stay. The imagined communities are also no less important for without them the circuit of FM broadcast will not be complete. The future of our collective urban imagination is richer by their presence whatever the politics of taste for FM programmes might be.