FEATURES NEWS THE RISING NEPAL (DAILY)

Reducing Rural Energy Crisis
Appropriate Policies Needed

By Khilendra Basnyat

ENERGY has been termed as the fuel of economic progress. As such, development areas need more energy which multiplies human labour, increasing productivity. It lights buildings, purifies water, powers machinery, stores and disseminates information among others.

Population growth, the desire for comfort, material acquisition, mobility and communication, and access to the materials, processes and technology to meet such desires by an increasing number of people has brought with it rising energy demand and the incentives to meet it.

Key Factor

In fact, there is a direct correlation between the degree of economic growth, the size of per capita income and per capita energy consumption. This is evident from the fact that countries that have had abundant energy supply available to them have higher rates of industrial growth and increase in the Gross National product than the countries deficient in energy supply.

Over ninety per cent of the total energy is consumed by the domestic sector, most of which is used for cooking. Therefore, the largest proportion of energy use is for meeting basic food needs.

About ninety-six per cent of the energy used by the domestic sector is met by firewood. Consequently, there is a serious danger of environmental problems due to accelerated deforestation.

According to the World Bank, in 1991 between seven and eight million of Nepal’s total population lived in absolute poverty, unable to support their minimum daily caloric intake and satisfy their minimum energy needs for cooking and heating.

The rural poor, especially women and children, have suffered a lot in this declining spiral because they are the main users of forest products such as firewood, folder and handicraft materials. Difficulties in acquiring sufficient wood has not only led to nutrition and hygiene problems but also to setback in food production.

Due to scarce firewood, agricultural residue is being increasingly diverted from its traditional fodder or manure use. Hence, the firewood problem is not only an energy issue but a symption of the deteriorating environmental and socio-economic conditions that lead to poverty.

In reality, wood supplies for the rural poor can be augmented through the promotion of local community forestry projects which have been launched in different parts of the country since the past few years. However, community forestry projects alone cannot solve Nepal’s mounting rural energy problems because under such projects there is no adequate production from newly planted or existing forests. What is more, community forests alone will not be able to solve the problem of deforestation in Nepal.

Keeping this fact in mind, the Eighth Five-Year Plan placed emphasis on the use of electricity and other alternative energy sources as substitutes to firewood. No license is required for hydropower projects with up to one thousand kilowatt capacity, and there is a provision for tax exemption of private sector generating hydroelectricity up to one thouasnd kilowatt. Apart from this, the government provides tax initiatives for alternative energy producers and grants and subsidies to users, especially in the promotion of biogas and solar energy.

Started with the joint initiatives of the United Nation’s Development Programme and His Majesty’s Government in 1996, the Rural Energy Development Programme (REDP) has been found fruitful to bring about improvement in rural energy crisis.

The overriding goal of REDP is to increase the level of energy services to the rural poor by developing a range of technology including micro hydro, solar, biogas and improved cooking stoves.

REDP is based on a holistic approach to rural development, a decentralised mode of technology transfer and a wide scale of social mobilisation and community participation. Since sustainability is the key to REDP intervention, there is a provision to provide necessary training to local people.

As of December 1999, twenty-five plants with a total capacity of four hundred kilowatt have already been commissioned through REDP. Apart from this, some peltric sets have also been installed in progarmme districts.

REDP has reportedly completed forty-five micro hydro-projects generating six hundred and seventy-six kilowatt of electricity, and micro hydro-projects with total power output of seven hundred and twently-eight kilowatt are under construction. The programme has also supported the installation of nine hundred and five solar systems, five hundred and one biogas plants and about four thousand improved cooking stoves.

By the end of 2001, eighty schemes supported by REDP will be completed in fifteen districts such as Achham, Baiatdi, Deadeldhura, Bajura, Dailekh, Pyuthan, Baglung, Myadgi, Parvat, Tanahu, Dolakha, Kavrepalanchowk, Sindhu-palchowk, Okhaldhunga and Tehrathum with a total generating capacity of one thousand and four hundred kilowatt.

At present about fifty thousand rural people have access to electricity. After the completion of the afore-mentioned schemes, the total electricity generated by micro hydro plants in Nepal will be increased by one-third, making electricity accessible to about seventy thousand more rural people.

Necessity

The fulfilment of basic needs of the large proportion of rural population should be based on rural energy. For this the rural energy development programmes in Nepal should be looked at as an opportunity to overcome energy constraints in agriculture, cottage industry, tourism, transportation and communication. As a matter of fact, the provision of electricity or biogas provides a new impetus for rural development through the infusion of new technology as well as skills.

In the past, several seminars and workshops were conducted to bring about development in the energy sector in Nepal. Such practices are not worthless. However, it is absolutely essential to crystallise ideas and formulate appropriate policies for the susbtantial development of energy in rural areas where there is crisis due to increasing deforestation.

Other Stories