Need to Revive Trolley Bus Service

Most of the electricity generated today is used at the household level. With only 15 percent of the population currently having access to electricity, there is much scope to expand household electricity consumption.

By Anil K Raut

While a lot of people talk about the need to generate power from our mighty rivers, very few have actually thought about effective utilization of this energy for the country’s development. Recently, Nepal’s largest power plant, the 144 MW Kali Gandaki ‘A’, has started supplying power to the national grid. Similarly, the government has announced that it is going to start work on other large power projects such as Arun-3, Sapta Gandaki, Tama Koshi, and Upper Karnali. Although it is not clear where the government will get the money to finance these projects, it is clear that the government is only considering power generation.

Most of the electricity generated today is used at the household level. With only 15 percent of the population currently having access to electricity, there is much scope to expand household electricity consumption. However, due to the country’s rugged terrain and scattered settlement pattern, expansion of the national grid to remote villages is a difficult, time consuming and expensive task. Sale of power to India has also been talked about. But this is also difficult because currently electricity is much cheaper south of the border. As a result, today much of the power we generate is actually going to waste. While on the other hand, country is importing large amount of fossil fuel for vehicle, household, and industrial uses. This import is causing heavy loss on foreign revenue and is also threatening the health of urban residents causing severe air pollution.

Studies have shown that air pollution in Kathmandu valley has already crossed the internationally adopted guidelines by 2-3 folds and it is increasing at a rate by which it will double within the next 15 years if control measures are not applied. Much of this pollution is due to the increasing number of vehicles. The number of vehicles in the Valley is increasing at an alarming rate of 21 percent per year. Everyone, including the government, agrees that what we need is more effective public transportation and environment friendly vehicles. However when it comes to taking action, electric vehicles, which are one of the best means to consume the country’s excess off-peak energy and clean up Kathmandu’s air, are not being promoted to the extent necessary. The fact that the 28-year-old trolley bus service was closed down and the Safa Tempo is struggling is a clear indication that the government is not interested in consumption of electricity in an effective manner.

All of us know that, failure of Kathmandu’s trolley bus service was due to mismanagement and political interference. It can be revived with proper management and if it is kept away from the dirty hands of politicos. A study done by Renewable Energy Programme Support Office (REPSO) indicated that 25 trolley buses can profitably operate on the existing system. There are also possibilities of operating the existing trolley bus service in partnership with the private sector. The government can either give the entire system to a private company on lease or allow different private parties to hook their buses on the existing lines. Many private parties have already shown their interest to operate the trolley bus system, but this requires a green signal from the government. The government needs to decide how it wishes to operate the existing system and take immediate action.

The REPSO study also pointed out the feasibility of extending the trolley system around the 28 km Ring Road. Although every single five year plan drafted by the Government in the past 25 years, has mentioned that the trolley bus system will be expanded, in reality not an inch was added and even the existing system, donated by the Chinese government, was forced to collapse. Furthermore, even two years after REPSO indicated the possibility of operating a system of 28 trolley buses around Ring Road with an investment of approximately Rs. 440 million, the government has yet to follow it up with any action on its own initiative. There is urgent need of undertaking detailed feasibility study and implement the project with the help of the private sector.

It is clear that reviving the current trolley bus system, expanding the system around Ring Road and to other locations such as Kirtipur and Banepa, and increasing the fleet of Safa Tempos would provide significant economic and environmental benefits to the government. But it is the government which will have to take in this regard.

Moment in Eternity

Gaurab Raj Thapaliya

Amoment in an eternity is a recently published collection of ‘brief poems’ by a locally renowned poet Tulsi Thapa from Hetauda. It contains hundred poems both in Nepali and English. Structurally, Thapa has composed his poems based on Japanese haiku but are not completely restricted in haikus syllabic constraints. However, each poem has two lines followed by a witty and exploding concluding one. As the name of his book suggests, his poems open an eternal space with numerous thoughts provoking expressions for the modern reader.

He starts his poetic journey with a poem titled "The Beginning" creating an absurd situation, he writes;

We have reins, no horses

And now begins

A wonderful journey.

People, in the modern world, are unwillingly rooted in such absurdity where they are ‘compelled to do’ with out any clear objective and destination. A famous philosopher Sarte says " to exist is to create your own life because we have to create meaning for ourselves." Mainly his poems titled ‘somewhere’, ‘Aged’, ‘Misplaced’, ‘Festivity’, ‘Identity’, ‘Identification’, ‘The mind’, ‘The murder’, ‘Revenge’, ‘Loneliness’, ‘Presence’ and similar other poems focus their subject on the angst, boredom, alienation, meaninglessness, that prevails the modern people. Somewhere Thapa’s poems seem to be centered on the condition of modern people. In his poem ‘Identity’ he writes;

Born it was me

Now he who is living

It’s not me and not me.

Another dominant factor in the life of contemporary modern world is that they always find themselves very ‘confusing’. Thapa describes the man as; "For non-living thing, it’s a living being, and for themselves always confusing." The poem titled " Imprisonment" is very vivid and convincing to state the pitiable condition of human being, he says;

What I did to free myself

Before I know it

I’d made a jail.

The speaker in the poem finds himself imprisoned inside a jail that he himself has created in the course of freeing himself. The poet expresses his anger and wants to revolt against the history and demands;

Where are those pieces of glasses?

You committed suicide with

Oh Bhimsen! I will make a missile of them.

His last poem " The last scene" is very much touching and presents a kind of irony again on the aimless journey. Reinterpreting Mahabharat he concludes his collection and says;

Sanjaya, Tell me what is visible

Oh! King, what I see

Are all invisible.

Mixing philosophical questions with poetic feeling Tulsi Thapa has woven threads of history, religion, myth and even politics to make his idea convincing. All the poems in this collection can be found beautifully crafted, simple and delicate enough to express his evocation of modern time. Some of his poems often signify the individual loss of identity and emptiness in the life living through the difficult time. Besides, his poems bear sharp irony, humor and reappraisal of life, living in this inhospitable world.

To sum up, this collection is Tulsi Thapa’s first literary creation in a form of book but he has tried his best to present himself as a "maker of vision" by transforming his lifelong experience into an literary art. For the reader " A moment in an eternity" provides very precious moments with superb thought to stimulate the reader with eternal probability of meaning strongly related to the experienced of modern people.

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