Karnali On Focus

AT a time when the Maoists are reportedly preparing to escalate the so called ‘People’s War’, Deputy Prime Minister Ram Chandra Paudel’s visit to the Maoist affected districts of the Western Development Region has become a great consolation to the local people. Over 1500 people, including the common citizens, Maoists rebels and the police personnel have lost their lives in the five-year insurgency since mid February 1996. DPM Paudel, who also looks after the Home Ministry, has been on the visit of the Maoists affected regions just days after the government formally formed the armed police force aimed at controlling the insurgency. Although the Maoists seem to be active in many zones, the Rapti and Karnali zones have been badly affected. Most of the fatal clashes between the police and the rebels have taken places in Karnali zone. The insurgents even carried a daring attack on Dune, Dolpa district’s headquarters, a few months back. Therefore, the DPM’s visit to these areas is important, even if just to reassure the people of the government’s committment to maintain law and order.

Meanwhile, DPM Paudel visited some of the Maoist affected villages in Kalikot and Jajarkot districts the other day. Addressing a function at Mynma, the Kalikot district headquarters, Paudel rightly said that the Maoists are ‘anti-development elements’ and claimed they are damaging all the development activities being carried out at a topographically very difficult area. In fact, Paudel was right to blame the Maoists because since the beginning of the insurgency, development activities have been nil in some of the districts in Karnali zone. As such, the government recently introduced an integrated development programme, which gives top priority to road construction in the region, for the five districts of the Karnali zone. Indeed, impoverishment and backwardness give birth to several problems including terrorism in a country. It is pragmatic on the part of the government to launch development activities in such areas and the construction of roads can prove significant for other development works. The success of the on going development programme can be an effective remedy for the present Maoist activities. Therefore, all should co-operate with the government for the successful implementation of the programme so that the country and the people will no more suffer, either due to lack of development or due to insurgency.

Senseless Protests

IN a bid to coerce the government into scrapping its decision to ban vehicles that are more than 20 years old from the Kathmandu Valley, transport entrepreneurs have, of late, been resorting to several tactics, not the least being a strike on Friday that left commuters stranded for nearly the whole day. Encouraged by the success in pushing the highly polluting three wheelers, the Indian-made Vikram, out of the capital in 1999, the government has now decided to do away with old vehicles by December 2001, that could affect as many as 10,000 buses, mini-buses, taxis and three wheeler tempos. Most of the buses operating in the capital are those that have been retired from running on long-distance routes, while nearly all the minibuses were brought overland by tourists from Europe in the Sixties and Seventies. The vehicles are notoriously polluting, and a ban on them would certainly make a difference in the quality of air in the capital. Vehicular emission is a major contributor to Kathmandu’s air pollution. A growing awareness about the degrading environment in Kathmandu in the early Nineties suddenly made all the stakeholders sit up and think. The government invited scientists to conduct research on air quality and introduced emission standards. Highly polluting vehicles were banned from entering certain streets in the capital, and lead-free petrol was introduced. An electric vehicle (EV) industry was set up, as a result of which hundreds of indigenously developed EVs today ply the roads of Kathmandu. But despite these measures, in the absence of strict enforcement, pollution continues to grow. The first victim of air pollution has, naturally, been the tourism industry, with growing complaints about it by visitors. Health disorders caused by pollution are yet another concern of the public. Against this backdrop, the recent decision of the government to ban old vehicles is timely and needs to be taken by all positively. The vehicles that the government intends to ban have in any case outlived their utility. And the transport entrepreneurs have 10 long months to think of alternatives to replace them. This is just the opportunity to give Nepal’s EV industry a boost. The investment required to replace all these vehicles will be huge. But the benefits accruing from it will be well worth the investment in the long run.