UN bureaucrat exposes Nepali planners!

A few years ago Tony Hagen had rightly said that a country like Nepal needed no Planning Commission as such. What prompted him to say so is beyond our approach to predict but then assessing the dismal and disgusting performances of the said institution over decades and decades what could be surmised that the world known figure had not uttered those million dollar words for nothing. The fact of the matter is that Nepal's NPC has ever remained a house full of paper tigers and that too favored by Nepal's corrupt leaders of all shades and colors who, sitting in Kathmandu Chairs imagine the plight of the marginalised section of the remote parts of the country where no fruits of the plannings but the rays of the Sun have reached. It is this set of paper tigers housed in clean and well decorated chambers inside the Singh Durbar who have been given the charge to change the fates of the teeming millions who in all probability will never see in their remaining lifetime these personalities stepping to their doors and enquiring about their real demands.

Interestingly enough, after Tony Hagen, it is Kul Chandra Gautam, a Nepali national currently a bureaucrat of the UN System in New York, made a scathing remark apparently aimed at Nepal's paper tigers who according to Monsieur Gautam were quick in making good and voluminous reports of world standard and that too in no time. However, he in the same vein lamented over the implementation part of the said reports, thus submitted by Nepal's paper tigers. The meaning lies in between preparing the reports and the non-implementation of the same by Nepal's overly politicized and partisan paper tigers seated at the NPC, to put it mildly.

Let's look what he has to say about Nepal's paper tigers. Mr. Gautam says, (sic)" I have remarked that Nepal is generally second to none in producing good reports on all kinds of development issues that are a la mode". In the same vein Mr. Gautam makes a sarcastic remarks against the Nepali paper tigers when he says. (sic) " If we could be half as effective in producing results, as we are in producing reports, the people of this country would indeed be very well served".

Question now arises as to why for nothing personalities of Mr. Gautam's stature would pass on such negative comments unless they have found out the truth behind Nepal's dismal performance despite the incessant pouring in of the aid packages from the international donor community. Mr. Gautam as a personality occupying a very prestigious chair in the present day UN System must have told this after carefully examining the factors that in essence have caused the snail pace of Nepal's development over the years. Making reports is one thing, however, bringing those ear pleasing reports into implementation is entirely different.

While Mr. Gautam's remarks may not have been taken in good taste, understandably by those for whom it was meant apparently, but assuredly Gautam's remarks have touched the hearts of the Nepali scholars who attended the gathering in Kathmandu last week wherein the UN bureaucrat very comfortably lambasted at the Nepali paper tigers. Whether they like it or not, but the hard fact is that Mr. Gautam dared to say so and he has done so very candidly. Some one had to come forward and very pleasingly Mr. Gautam did this on our behalf. He did so also on the behalf of those for whom the planning is meant, if it were any.

The fact is that most of the paper tigers at the Nepal's Planning Commission were either affiliated to one or the other political parties which has pushed them to those posts or were "green card" holders of some developed Western countries. Understandably for this set of the planners Nepal's planning matter less for they were in full knowledge that even if their planning failed would mean no harm to them. A set that has "foren" connection can't deliver goods and will understandably be less sensitive towards the problems of the population for whom they were at the moment told to work by the establishment.

It is in this light the utterances of Tony Hagen and of Mr. Gautam has to be taken. Our intention is not to malign the prestige of the NPC members, but then the fact is that they too must act and perform in order to produce results, which so far is missing in the papers only. Whether they are green-card holders or not is immaterial for us. What matters and should matter that till they are in the sensitive posts must dedicate themselves in the larger interest of those who have remained marginalised since decades and decades and where the men seated at the NPC prefer not to drop in for obvious reasons.

Good and result-oriented planning can only be accomplished if one prefers to penetrate into the internal dynamics of the country's situation that have in effect been retarding the development of the nation despite the Himalayan efforts of the international community who wish to see a highly developed and prosperous Nepal. But this can only be achieved if the men at the NPC wish to meet those who live in remote parts of the country and talk to them and plan accordingly. Visiting London and Brussels or Washington or Berlin and beg alms in the name of the planning will yield no results. It is time that our white color planners drop in Rolpa, Dolpa, Mustang and the likes and mix with the people there who apparently were still in the mediaeval ages.

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