Oh Melamchi! Ah Melamchi!

Tall claims apart, relatively a recent observable fact in the Nepalese milieu indeed that has flourished by leaps and bounds over the years, the kingdom remains where it was some years ago. One need not pay a single penny for his or her tall blunt assertions for it is a free item which could be delivered to any one on whom one trusts. This way the Nepalese population were awarded with so many tall claims and that too in succession by our national leaders and the silent majority too their leaders’ claims at its face value and anticipated that heaven is coming down the earth in a matter of some years in the country. However, that was not to come about. For, making well-expressed lectures on any matter under the sun is different and making it to turn out in the real life is an entirely different job. Thus we the Nepali people wasted as many as good thirteen years in the fervent wish that the already burdened lives will get a new facelift. The rest you all know.

The practice of making giant and soaring claims made in a roaring voice although began at the fag end of the erstwhile regime, however, it took a different dimension when we had restored the democratic system in the country. Even the then active monarch did in his all honesty appealed the leaders that Nepal, as a country will attain new heights within some years from now. However, those ear-pleasing and years full of hopes never came.

Then the stick of the marathon of making tall claims naturally came down in the hands of those who remained instrumental in bringing about a total collapse of the previous regime. One leader is on record to have declared that well within a few years Kathmandu will have an image that will exceed the beauty that of the Singapore and that soon Kathmandu’s dirt and filth could be flushed by fresh waters. This declaration is almost thirteen years old. The fact is that Kathmandu continues to be one of the dirtiest cities in the world and the citizens of this capital city hanker after a glass of water for well over a decade or so.

Next tall claim was bit technical pronounced by nonelessthan a top-notch of a Communist party who off the cuff made an almost mind-boggling and utopian remarks at a Chitwan gathering of his loyalists that in a matter of few years his country could be able to export "electrical energy" to neighboring Tibet-China through the kind courtesy of "satellites". The fact is that nothing of that sorts have happened as of today. Talk of MELAMCHI-a mega water supply project has taken a nosedive with rumors that the idea itself of bringing the water from the said place could finally be dumped for good for a variety of explainable and unexplainable reasons.

The Melamchi project which was talked to come into full operation by the end of 2006 is itself in a limbo. Sources say that only about four percent of the project works have so far been concluded which by this time should have been at least crossed the forty percent limit of the total. One gentleman associated with the Melamchi project on Monday morning was heard saying over radio that if we were really sincere about Melamchi then and then only we should proceed with the scheme or else it would be better to pack the project in the larger interest of the nation.

The government says the Korean contractor is creating problems. The contractor says it was not. This brawl in between the project management and the service provider is pushing the Melamchi far from us all. Where lies the problem, no body knows because neither the contractor nor the project management believes in transparency?

Be that as it may, if every thing went smooth and well, Melamchi could well become a fantasy project for the Kathmanduites till the dawn of the year 2010 at the earliest.

Naughty politics results in awful governance. Awful governance becomes a menace for a country like ours wherein the governing leaders itself have either been dubbed as a hazard or were very close to a threat to the country itself. The message is loud and clear.

Perform or a real regression is awaiting the country.

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