Federalism in whose interests?

On/Off the Record

By P.R. Pradhan

Nepal is rewarded with a 10 billion rupees worth four-year project to strengthen federalism.

According to the Gorkhapatra daily, a government mouthpiece, to strengthen federalism and support provincial and local governments, the PLGSP programme has been introduced for four years with the support of Nepal’s development partners. The partner countries/agencies have provided grant support worth 10 billion rupees, whereas, Nepal will spend 3 billion rupees as matching fund making the project fund worth 13 billion rupees.

Nepal’s development partners UK, European Union, Norway, Switzerland and UNDP have jointly provided 10 billion rupees for the four-year project.

Understandably, the countries/agencies providing grant support for enhancement of the federalism were active to make success the 2006 April uprising in Nepal. They had partnered with India to success the so-called people’s movement-2. The mission was clear. Firstly, they wanted to replace the Hindu nation by a secular status with the plan of conversion of the religion of the people having belief on Hindu and Buddhist religion into a Christian. When they saw the institution of monarchy as a big hurdle in achieving their goal, they decided to declare Nepal a republic. The other goal of the so-called development partners is to keep Nepal under their grip by creating instability in Nepal. They have thus provoked Nepali ethnic community for revolt. Therefore, federalism was introduced in Nepal. The hidden plan of the development partners is not to transform Nepal into a prosperous nation but keeping the country a permanently poor nation so that they could buy Nepali leaders and intellectuals just by paying a few thousand Euros. Those agents in the country are thus lauding the European agendas, no need to mention their name as we all are aware of their activities. In fact, federalism cannot sustain in Nepal like country, which has already been proved. Federalism has been introduced in Nepal to destroy our culture, religion, tradition, language and more importantly, Nepal’s economy. For those Europeans having ill-intention towards Nepal, it has become easy to fulfil their vested interests due to the leaders and intellectuals having a corrupt mentality.

Lilamani Poudel, former chief secretary, who had exhibited a clean image when he was in the government service, at one occasion, cited an example that why Nepal is still a poor nation, although, the country is receiving foreign grants and loans for last seven decades. He shared the examples of different projects funded by the Westerners saying that from 60 to 80 percent of the project fund goes back to the concerned countries under different terms and conditions. He concluded that the Western grants and loans are aimed at keeping Nepal permanently poor but not transforming it a prosperous nation. Obviously, Nepal will not need foreign grant and loan if it becomes an economically prosperous nation.

The Westerners have made a huge investment on our political leaders, high ranking bureaucrats, intellectuals, among others just to keep Nepal a poor nation. Not to forget, the Indian support in Nepal is also on the same line. The Indian investment on our political readers, intellectuals, bureaucrats and also on the businessmen is very huge. The purpose of such investment is understandable.

Hydropower, tourism, and agriculture are the key sectors which can transform Nepal into a prosperous nation. We have enough potentiality for development of hydropower. Unfortunately, the reality is that we are importing electricity from India. Strange to note, we are talking about the construction of Nepal-India cross-country transmission lines to export electricity to India at a very cheap price. Our political leaders, intellectuals and policymakers don’t talk about producing electricity at cheap price and supplying it to the local industries. Always, every finance minister is found encouraging imports of foreign products by discouraging local industries. We know, if provided some facilities, our industries can substitute imports of many items.

Many European countries have announced the replacement of petro-product consuming vehicles and industries from their country within two or three decades. They have focused on environment-friendly renewable energy such as hydropower plant, solar plant, among others. At this stage, we are talking about the construction of a petrol-supplying pipeline from India to Nepal! We are spending a huge amount of foreign currency in the import of petro-products. Our foreign trade has gone very negative and petro-products have made a remarkable contribution to it. We know, Nepal, to become self-reliant on electricity, some big reservoir model hydropower projects should be constructed as the quantity of the electricity produced from run-of-the-river model plants will extremely decline during the dry season. Every consumer is paying Rs. 5 per litre of petro-products to construct Kali Gandaki reservoir model hydropower plant. Until now, the government has collected billions of rupees on this fund. Yet, we don’t see any sign for construction of the project. We know, water is important, yet, we are unable to utilize water in our rivers.

We talk about tourism development. To increase the number of tourists visiting Nepal, the construction of Nijgadh airport is essential. There is no alternative to this. When we talk about the construction of the proposed Nijgadh airport, overnight, jungle-friendly people will appear in the streets. They are not bothered about everyday smuggling of trees from the protected jungles in the country.

To conclude, our leaders, policymakers, and intellectuals are running behind Indian and Euro currency pushing the nation towards an accident. Always, they are creating obstacles on the construction of projects which would transform Nepal into a prosperous nation.

Viewing anomalies in all sectors, the general public has reached to the conclusion that the monarchial rule was far better than the present governance. The level of frustration among the general public has inclined to that stage that they are seeking either a military rule or an autocratic rule to punish the corrupt and foreign paid political leaders, intellectuals, and bureaucrats.