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Kathmandu Monday May 14, 2001 Jestha 01, 2058.
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Why ‘subsidy’ irritates donors ?
The letter from Dr Richard Vokes, Resident Representative of
the Asian Development
Bank (ADB) entitled "Good and bad subsidies" (April 26, 2001, TKP) has drawn my
attention which, I am sure would be a matter of grave concern for marginal landholding
farmers. We find his argument against subsidy has no strength. Subsidy particularly on
Shallow Tube Well (STW) can no longer be a hindrance for the promotion of agriculture.
Experience has shown that many individual farmers are encouraged to install STWs with the
availability of subsidy. Their hopes have further been raised due to the surplus power
that would be generated after the completion of Kali Gandaki Hydropower Project. We have
examples of failed projects with high cost involvement funded by ADB that are highly
subsidized. Those benefits that Mr Vokes advocates as implicit subsidy going in favour of
poor, is again unconvincing because the cost that goes in the name of awareness raising
and social mobilization fills the pockets of the so-called experts without much benefit to
the real beneficiaries, adding cost to the nation and ultimately raising the debt burden
for Nepalese citizens. Citizen’s concern is, therefore, valid on the accountability
of ADB in formulating and financing for the implementation of such expensive
non-functioning projects with high element of software cost with little going to the
benefit of the poor and marginal farmers, which is evident from the not so successful
community ground water project advocated by the ADB. Despite claims of successes and
excuses that donors are used to making for the project failures, we find no way to justify
scores of ADB funded projects that either are marginally successful or have completely
failed in the past. For instance, Rural Drinking Water Project phases I, II, III and IV,
Banganga Irrigation system (Kapilvastu district), invisible STWs under APP (Siraha and
Saptari districts), Kalyanpur Drinking Water Supply System (Saptari district), Pathari
Drinking Water Supply Project (Morang district) and Khalanga Drinking Water Supply System
(Dadeldhura district) are failed projects funded by the ADB that will remain as a
historical monument of stupidity against the advocacy of the bank helping Nepal to
alleviate poverty and combat corruption.
The bank has been promoting projects that employ contractors,
advocates handing them over to the pseudo users created after the completion of the
project, which cannot be managed by the farmers due to complexity and high operation and
maintenance cost. Moreover, numbers of such projects have remained incomplete despite a
series of repeated investment. Most of the large irrigation systems built under loan
programmes have either failed or have very low command area irrigating less than 20
percent year round against the target. On the contrary, the STW is less complex, economic
to the farmers with adaptive technology and provides year round irrigation.
Santanu Regmi
Durbar Marg, Kathmandu |
