FEATURES NEWS THE RISING NEPAL (DAILY)

The Right Approach
Commitment Is The Key

By Prem N. Kakkar

TEN years of democracy and the people’s aspirations have not fully been fulfilled during the period. The 1990 that ushered in the much-expected democracy was greeted by almost everyone. Of course, there is no doubt over the fact that in an atmosphere of freedom, there is every opportunity for taking the country forward in its path towards prosperity or to say lead to the overall development of the country to materialise.

Need

Though ten years is not a long time in the life of a country but it is enough to devise strategies and programmes as per the needs of the people. It is the maturity of the leaders in a democracy that matters when efforts are required to do the needful in meeting the aspirations of the people. The rise in aspirations in the initial phases in the early 1990s was but a natural outcome of the events that had remained for three decades prior to it.

But what unfolded was that working in a democratic set-up was not familiar to many of the political leaders though they did have ideas of what to do in the days and years to come. With the new Constitution in force, there was evidently an air of euphoria that the future would be certain and better. It was evidently the need of the hour after a long gap of darkness. There was light at the end of the tunnel and the need was to give shape to plans and programmes once the elected government was installed. The Nepali Congress party government that came to power after the first general elections had its priority set. But some unfortunate events led to another round of mid-term polls and then followed a host of minority and coalition governments which slowed the momentum in the direction that was though essential for the well-being of the people.

What needs attention is that political commitment and action commensurate with it must be the driving force behind any government. First, when there is firm commitment, the task is made simpler by the very fact that the path is clear and only a helping hand by the mechanism devised for it needs to be activated to bring about the right achievement. Plans and programmes fail to deliver the goods if commitment is lacking. There are ample number of goods delivery that have suffered due to half hearted commitment.

Commitment in words alone does not do the trick as is evident. The need is to back it up with a relevant action plan. It’s easy to talk of hydro-power development only in theory does not make sense if we get bogged down in word play while the actual implementation aspect sees no way. The maze is all the more complicated with the paucity of funds though not with the availability of skilled manpower at our disposal.

Good governance, maintenance of law and order in all parts of the country and poverty alleviation are the key priorities pronounced by the present government headed by Prime Minister Koirala. There have been attempts to achieve the goals set forth. Even the presentation of the budget for the fiscal year 2000-2001 was done almost a month and a half back yet the whole case of the increased salaries of the civil servants took a long time solving so there was some dissatisfaction. The commitment was there but the implementation was a long time coming. Such types of problems must be visualised right at the outset so that they do not prove to be bottlenecks later on which can further complicate issues.

On the case of poverty alleviation, many programmes are in force including BP with the Poor. The commitment is there to alleviate poverty with a gradual enhancement of the economy that is increase in jobs, production and productivity among others. There have been some thrusts made but that is not enough as far as meeting the demands of the people are concerned. This is a crucial question.

When we realise that the western region of Nepal has been lagging behind in every sphere of development it can be seen that it was a lack of commitment towards raising the standard of life of the people in those regions. The realisation has now dawned that even if one development region is behind then it affects the country itself. The lack of resources may be a problem but there are other way to tackle them. What is needed is firm commitment before going on to make specific plans and programmes to tackle the issues at hand. Once there is commitment, there is enough impetus to take the action plan forward as the case may be.

The Maoist insurgency may also have its genesis in that the districts where they have flourished belong to the most neglected part of the country as far as taking development activities there is concerned. If there had been an interest in the problems of the backward regions long time ago that is when the partyless system was in force, the problem would not have become so aggravated in recent times. Even after democracy returned to the country, a sort of political instability, especially in the period 1994 to 1999 is held responsible in the shift of attention from the problems of the people to that of the hot seat and political power.

Mobilisation

Now that the majority NC government is there, there is every need to mobilise all resources to combat the challenges that confront us. And in this political commitment is a must with the appropriate policies and programmes in place. Then only the objectives will be achieved.

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