We are, it seems, quite incapable of doing anything other than lowering our performance at every level. No wonder our report card has “barely crawling” stamped all over. Not that we ever aim low. On the contrary, our aims have always been lofty. To clarify, this write up is not about the never ending political soap opera known as the Constituent Assembly with casts running into hundreds of people and expenses running into hundreds of millions but about our great ability to turn a perfectly good product into a sick or useless one in a short span. There are quite a few donor aided projects which could still have been running had it not been for the gross mismanagement. Let us recall some here.
US aid agencies usually tend to focus on upgrading social infrastructure rather than building physical ones. In that respect, their involvement in building a 42 Km Hetauda –Kathmandu ropeway was quite a departure. The Indian assisted Tribhuvan Rajpath (1956) was crucial, but it followed an extremely difficult hill alignment that was not easy for loaded vehicles lumbering through the hairpin bends. The ropeway helped cut travel time, was cheaper to run and above all, was not affected by weather. The system hauled 22 tons of cargo daily. While the volume was small, it would still have been useful and effective had it not been for the apathy shown by organisation that ran it. Yatayat Sansthan (NYS) found it more lucrative to run a fleet of trucks instead of a utility that did not generate much revenue anyway. Open pilferage along the track was a big operational issue.
Let alone building new projects on our own, we have become incapable of effectively running even those handed over to us.
The trolley bus is yet another instance of mismanagement by NYS. It was brought down by rampant pilferage of ticketing revenue and over staffing. The recent highway expansion has even uprooted the support poles and the contraptions so meticulously installed by the Chinese team. Sajha-yatayat also has a similar story to tell. It had received over 30 Mitsubishi buses along with a fully equipped repair shop as Japanese assistance. Although established as an independent and autonomous body, it was contaminated by significant government involvement leading to rapid financial and operational decline, especially after the change of 1990.
It is conventional wisdom that one can travel a longer route faster skirting the main city instead of through constricted city roads. The ring road was precisely envisaged on that line with wide tree lined boulevard where, theoretically, one could come out even for a breath of fresh air. All this has crumbled under urban pressure with new houses built around the ring road. Further, faced with severe traffic clogs at major junctions, the ring road has ended up being worse than the city road it sought to avoid. The auxiliary service road and tree lined avenue have both become more of an exception than rule.
Let alone building new projects on our own, we have become incapable of effectively running even those handed to us.
The case of Convention Hall at New Baneshwar, built especially for the SAARC conference, is another case in point. Once over, the centre has no other use until the next summit. Run by bureaucrats, ‘BICC’ as it was known then, was increasingly rented out for social events like wedding or other receptions. The ‘B’ perhaps stood for bureaucrats who ran it like any other government office. It was never marketed as a real convention outlet that could have earned revenue as well as allowed it to be maintained well. With it currently being used extensively as the main hub of political intercourse, one can wonder about its state of maintenance. And what if and when the CA finally winds up? If the centre continues to run how it does now, we may even require donor aid for getting it back to good shape.
One may wonder why the Thapathali Bridge, on way to Patan, has several speed bumps. Those are nothing but ‘expansion’ gaps over which numerous asphalt layers have been laid over time. Now, these stand tall as examples of poor maintenance. On another front, we will in all likelihood have flooded roads like in previous years during the monsoon—an inevitable consequence of sweeping everything into a manhole and not cleaning or clearing them. Drains, by definition should primarily consist of ‘flowing liquids’, but ours are ironically filled with solids.
These examples, while small, speak volumes about our maintenance regime. The question is whether we are as efficient and lazy. While it may not be that, what is true is that we are dumb bystanders and mute spectators to the inefficient and corrupt state that fails to maintain or effectively run any single physical or social infrastructure project in the country.
harjyal@yahoo.com
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