NATIONAL 4 - (Spotlight Weekly)

‘I Have Plans For Every Inch Of Kathmandu’

—KESHAV STHAPIT

Keshav Sthapit, the mayor of Kathmandu Metropolitan Corporation (KMC), is known as a tough-guy with vision for the development of the capital city. A maverick mayor, Sthapit won laurels for undertaking several projects to beautify the city. His able leadership came under focus when he changed the landscape of the capital city "within days" on the eve of 11th SAARC Summit — a feat many had thought impossible to achieve. Encouraged by the response, Sthapit says he has a bagful of similar projects that could transform the whole outlook of the city in the next six months. A communist leader who won the elections for the mayor on a ticket from UML and later sided with the ML, Sthapit spoke at length about his dream projects to make Kathmandu, one of the most "beautiful and comfortable" cities in the world. Excerpts from his candid interview with KESHAB POUDEL and SANJAYA DHAKAL taken at his official quarters in Lazimpat:

What vision did you have for the city when you first became mayor and how is it coming through?

Kathmandu is a rare kind of city. Go atop one of the surrounding hills like Shivapuri and look at this city. It is really unique. The citizens of this city are also very aware. This city has the potential to compete with any other cities in the world. But we did not understand the city in that way. I am confident that in the next decade or so we can make this city truly great. Kathmandu can become the most vibrant, comfortable, beautiful and humane city. Citizens are quite ready for that. I have encountered citizens who are willing to sacrifice their personal belongings if that could help the city. Recently, during the construction of Mandala garden in Maitighar, I was approached by an unknown person at midnight at the construction site who said he was ready to give Rs 400,000 for the garden. Such are its citizens. But we have never been able to capitalize on such citizenry. This is because we lacked leaders. Over the years, I have attempted to understand the citizens of this city. I can now say that I can involve them in my campaigns. Once citizens are involved, the rest evolves easily. I have developed this gameplan of involving citizens, making them concerned about a particular project and going head-on with it, capitalizing on their goodwill.

You are involved in creation while, at times, political parties destroy public property in the name of anti-government protests. How do you find all this?

I take all this as a part of competition. I am playing in a competition, which I am determined to win. I know the people who engage in destruction. If they destroy a garden, I will create two. The more they paste posters on city's walls, the faster I will remove them. Then we will come to a point when people will begin to realize what is going on. Every political party needs people's support to establish their base and they can never go against people's will. In this competition, I am confident the people will support me and they will finally stop engaging in meaningless destruction. Until that time comes, I will not tire. I will continue my creation. I will vanquish them in this competition.

You were with the UML and then switched to the splinter ML. Now that these two parties are on the verge of reuniting, how do you think that would affect your work? Will you gain more support now?

I consider myself as a river. My destiny, my character is to flow. Flow, flow and flow. If some other river comes to mix with me, definitely, I may gain speed. In that, the reunification could accelerate my flow. Other than that, I do not think it would affect my work in any manner. In any case, I will not cease to flow until I reach my final destination.

We see pessimism —even cynicism —among most political leaders. There is also a tendency to obstruct the constructive job others are doing. How do you tackle such disruptions?

I have this character of fire. If people stay away (from what I am doing), I will give them warmth and heat. If they come closer and start playing with me, they will burn their fingers. These are the people who resent me. They have no future. I cannot take nonsense from anybody. I am doing what I do best. I am a strong optimist with high hopes for future.

The moves taken by the KMC under your leadership in demolishing illegally constructed houses in Tinkune area and the construction of garden in Maitighar junction have been lauded by many as bold. But why did you have to wait for an occasion like the SAARC summit and the state of emergency to do that?

Had the government shown similar zeal and motivation earlier, we would not have to wait for SAARC or emergency. The present government has this zeal. Besides, such things cannot be done without prior planning. If the KMC did not have plans to develop the area, the mere drawing of such gardens and Mandala would have taken months. We had all the plans ready. In fact, the KMC has hundreds of similar plans and projects to develop every nook and corner of the city. If the government continues to cooperate with us, we will be implementing each and every one of our plans soon.

There is this notion among the public that Nepalis are lazy and work slowly. But under your leadership and motivation, the garden in Maitighar was completed in a miraculously short time. What do you say? Will this pace of development continue?

I reject this notion. Nepalis have taken part in big wars. They go miles simply to fetch water. They engage in unthinkable hazards in collecting honey. They take yaks to high altitudes for grazing. These are but few examples. How can you call such people lazy? In fact, Nepalis are brimming with energy. We only need to know how to tap that energy positively. I know how to do that.

What should the people of Kathmandu expect from you in the coming days?

I have hundreds of plans. I have plans for every inch of Kathmandu. If I had to rank it, then I would put what we did in Tinkune and Maitighar at less than 1 point. In the next six months, I plan to achieve 40 such points. For instance, the houses around the Ratna Park area will be demolished to regulate the road and construct a park there. I have a master plan for Swayambhu —we are shortly clearing the Bhagwan Pau area there. Then I have a plan for landscaping the whole area from Jaisi Deval to Hanumandhoka square and all the way to Chhetrapati. All the old historic temples there will be maintained. Likewise, we are working on the Bishnumati link road and Bagmati corridor. The KMC also plans to improve the area of Anamnagar-Ghattekula. Then, there is this plan of constructing roads on either side of the Dhobikhola river. These are the works that will be completed in the next six months.

What kind of cooperation do you expect from the government in implementing these projects?

The present government is not only giving us the cooperation, but is even leading the way. We have meetings daily and the government has shown full commitment. I had not encountered such a government before. We plan to develop the land with the area of 12,000 ropanis —which is double the area of the present core city. We are going to start the preliminary works on 1,000 ropanis of that land in next one month and it will be completed in two years. The process of handing over the responsibility of Ratna Park and Rani Pokhari areas to the KMC (by the government) has begun. Once it materializes, we will construct an underground car park and a shopping complex there. These are only a few examples.

When will the Bishnumati link road be completed and how would it benefit the people?

Almost 900 meters of this road is already complete. This link road is nearly three kilometers long. Once this is completed, the present traffic volume in front of RNAC building area in New Road is expected to come down by 30 percent. This will greatly relieve the traffic pressure. Besides, this road is also linked with the environment and economy of the city.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) was to have financed this project. But it later pulled out. Have you tried to bring it back?

What happened was that the ADB had agreed to provide 840 million rupees then. Upon the agreement the government was to construct a section of the link road and the KMC would undertake the rest of the project. This agreement was based on new approach (of ADB) of working with municipality. But later, we could only spend 19 percent of the total 420 million rupees and that, too, in three years. Furthermore, most of that money was spent on buying vehicles, computers and so on. This led to a cooling of relations with the ADB. They thought they could not work with an institution that could not spend resources properly. The then leadership of the KMC could not show the desired zeal. Gradually, it lost the priority of the government. But the significance of this road only increased with time. And with the goodwill from the donors, we re-started it.

There is this concept of integrating all the municipalities within the valley to create a single Kathmandu Valley Authority. What do you say about this concept?

The government has this concept of integrating the valley and installing a commissioner. I strongly oppose this. I feel that the system of installing some bureaucrats to drive the valley will not work anymore. When you talk about institutionalizing the local bodies, then this goes against the spirit. However, a loose network of all the seven municipalities of the valley could be formed —where all municipalities will be autonomous but there will be the single forum of their mayors to discuss and decide on greater development works. But as far as installing some bureaucrat is concerned, I am against it.

You have talked about many projects and plans. Does the KMC have the resources to implement them?

At present, we raise revenue of 900 million rupees a year. Recently, we have been authorized to raise house/land tax. Based on what little database we have, we believe we can only bring in 25 percent of the total house/land tax in our net at present. Even the government did not have a proper database. As far as the KMC is concerned, we did not even have a proper revenue department. Now, we have made this department the most mobile and vibrant one. We plan to make it most scientific. If we become able to collect all types of taxes, our annual revenue could easily cross 2 billion rupees.

There are concerns over the pollution and poor environment of Kathmandu city. What do you say?

If you look at the whole Kathmandu city from a helicopter or a plane, you will notice that still around 80 percent of the valley including its fringe areas is green. The problem is only in those areas where there has been dense urbanization. And this is less than 20 percent. Although, some sections of rivers are polluted, our watershed is intact. Anyway, we do have remedies for that. We have started a study on cleansing Bishnumati river. Once we revive Bishnumati, people will be confident about the revival of Bagmati river, too. We are working to bring water from Melamchi river in the next five years, I am one of the members of that project. When Melamchi's water comes, we will need to widen the existing river network in order to be able to properly channel away the additional wastewater that will be generated then. We have to construct a drainage network. We are working towards this.

Do you have plans for widening existing roads and developing new ones in the city?

We have this Guided Land Development (GLD) plan drawn up by the City Development Project. It has well-drawn plans for road development in every nook and corner. But though it is on plan, it has never been implemented. It is just like a picture of a fish —though you like it, you cannot eat it. I plan to inject life in that fish. There are some obstacles some people have bought lands near main road and blocked entry to entire neighborhood behind. If a couple of meters of land is such areas are cleared, a couple of kilometers of road can be widened. In this manner, I plan to construct 200 km of road inside the city. Besides, we are widening most of the existing road network in the city. Separate lanes for cycles are also being constructed. Once these roads are constructed, we plan to bring in the system of reliable, cheap and fast mass transit so that people will no longer have to buy private vehicles for the purpose.

At a time when most political leaders are engaging in activities that are far from the people's hearts, and other municipalities have not been able to deliver, what made you so successful?

These days I have severely restricted my political activities. I rarely attend even my party's meetings. The crux of politics is country's prosperity and creating a humane society for people. This cannot be achieved by talking alone. You have to work. I am a person who believes in actions, not words. You have to show people real and concrete work. This is why people in Kathmandu today have developed the notion that "we can do". I want to develop this notion further to "we have to do". Once the people develop this notion and start contributing from their side, development will happen quickly. As far as other municipalities are concerned, I have seen a number of mayors doing great jobs, greater than what I am doing. For example, the mayors of Dharan, Pokhara and Butwal have done wonderful jobs. In Palpa, the mayor had the vision of constructing a water-collecting site atop Srinagar hill and providing citizens drinking water. He has realized this previously unthinkable vision. So the local bodies are really coming. Mayors are gradually taking a lead in development.

When you constructed the garden in Maitighar, the government acquired land in Tinkune area after years of failing to do so. Now, what will happen to the land? Is there not a danger of people starting illegal settlements there?

I have told the government to hand over the land to the KMC. Then I will negotiate with the local people on the issue of compensation. People have said the compensation promised by the government is far too less. The government has fixed the compensation at 800,000 to 1.6 million rupees per ropani —which I, too, consider to be less. I am willing to double the compensation. But if they demand more than that, we have to take other action. They should not forget that it is due to the investment by the state on Arniko highway and airport that raised the value of their land. Anyway, I believe there should be negotiations on the exact compensation amount. At Tinkune, if we are allowed, the KMC plans to construct a recreation center, shopping complex and huge statue of Manjushree there. This will involve an investment of about 300 million rupees, which I believe can be recovered by the center and complex.