Plan
And Implement
ANYONE who has witnessed the pell-mell way the
Kathmandu Valley has developed over the decades cannot but be filled with apprehension as
to what direction it is taking. All the signs are there that the Valley’s growth has
been too haphazard and it is bursting at the seams in many pockets of intense growth.
Thoughtless urbanisation over the decades with little care to planning has meant that the
Valley is in a mess. Before the Valley land prices went down in recent years and water
shortage got most acute, the most visible activity on the floor of the Valley was building
construction. Every little space, it seems, was being covered with bricks and concrete.
While construction boom went up and up, the level and status of infrastructure remained
where it was decades ago. Not that plans were not drawn up before. So far dozens of plans,
big and small, have been formulated over the decades on how to develop the Valley the
planned way. Unfortunately, these plans were never serious implemented. Efforts are on at
present to formulating another plan for the Valley, this time a 20-year long-term
development plan. The Kathmandu Valley Urban Development Committee the other day discussed
the proposed draft of the plan to give it a final shape. Nothing is wrong in drawing up a
policy document and a blue print for realising the concept of a balanced, sustainable and
feasible development of the valley, which is not only the national administrative hub, but
also a cultural, archaeological and tourist centre. The proposed plan seeks to turn
Kathmandu into an environmentally clean and beautiful capital city. It is proposed that
the Valley is developed as a single plan unit and capital investment be decentralised to
areas other than the Valley, while encouraging environmentally sound high-tech industries
in the Valley. Overall, the proposed plan seeks to confine the human settlement, presently
at 27 per cent, to 40 per cent of the total area 20 years from now. Good thoughts. But as
Minister for Physical Planning and Public Works Mahanta Thakur said at the interaction,
plans are not enough. They need to be earnestly implemented. Mr. Thakur revealed that
necessary laws were being drafted for establishment of a separate, independent body to
follow up on implementation of the plan and coordinate between related agencies. This is
perhaps the most crucial activity that the government can seriously take up in order to
avoid ending up with a big plan that simply cannot be implemented just like its
predecessors.
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