By Devendra Gautam

In the great times we the Nepalis have been living, pleasantly as ever, promises rained thick and fast at the Federal Parliament in Kathmandu on Friday (May 2) even as rains and snow showered other parts of the country with the setting of the chariot of Rato Matsyendranath, the great deity of rains and good harvest, in motion in the midst of the pre-monsoon season of 2025 AD.

This piece focuses on the rains in the parliament that occurred on the auspicious day when the President presented programs and policies of the government for the fiscal year 2025-26, giving a tight slap to critics, who think this government runs on whims and fancies of a leader or two.

Here are some of the highlights from the policy document with some restrained comments on some of them, given that powers that be have been doing all the talking giving wagging tongues galore a much-needed rest in a manner perfectly befitting our strain of democracy. 

Bad projects to go
Presenting the policies and programs on behalf of the government for the fiscal 2025-26 at the Federal Parliament, the President stated that the government will do away with bad projects, highlighting the need to re-prioritize all projects of the infrastructure sector. 
The idea is to segregate the projects and time their completion deadlines with the term of the parliament. 

Is the concept of bad projects a definite indication that this government has a great mansuwa (intent) of doing away with projects of the nemeses of the current Prime Minister? In this great polity firing on all four cylinders, where projects of national pride have become something else, no project seems good enough but it will be no wonder if this great wish encounters some resistance, to say the least. 

Relief for small depositors 
Per the policy document, the government will constitute an authority to return the deposits of “nominal savers” of cooperatives that have bled depositors white, thanks to scams galore that would not have been possible had there been a government authority to bridle them.
There’s certain ambiguity about nominal savers (what amount of saving makes a nominal saver?).  Does this great administration aim to play class politics by returning the deposits of nominal savers while forgetting other savers, who too have (almost) lost all of their life’s savings and many even their dear lives waiting to get their hard-earned monies back?

For the management of bad loans, the government is to establish an assets management company. Let’s hope that the company runs well, sparing this busy administration the trouble of establishing yet another company to run the previous one, triggering a chain reaction.


Alternative energy plans
Despite a largely tardy process of hydropower generation, the government has high targets on the alternative energy front. The policy document has a lofty aim of developing solar, wind and even hydrogen energy as alternative sources of energy, perhaps reflecting the government’s focus on exporting most of the hydropower generated within the country, with or without domestic investment, in these contrasting times when we have been lighting our lives with imported power and dreaming big and bright about exporting thousands of megawatts of the green energy generated in Nepal by companies from a particular country that has a vice-like grip on our water resources and making big money out of it.

Despite the plan to evacuate across the border every megawatt of hydropower generated in Nepal at dirt-cheap rates along with every drop of produced water as a mere byproduct (all for free) and import dirty fuels through cross-border petroleum pipelines, the promises keep coming like November rain, with the government vowing to make renewable energy accessible to all citizens. 

The plan is to electrify regions not connected with the national grid through solar, wind, micro and mini hydropower projects using mini grids. Indeed, this seems far more actionable than one grand leader’s grand vision of exporting hydropower using satellites. 

For reducing air pollution resulting from increasing use of dirty fuels (remember, Nepal hogged the limelight this summer before the rains for foul air even as the government remained tongue-tied vis-a-vis reports coming from a particular international air monitoring agency?), the government is to enforce Euro-6 standards on petrol engines.


A decade of jobs

Which government worth its name can forget the youth and afford to not talk about gainful employment for them? 
The policy document has declared the next decade as the employment decade with a lofty promise to create jobs for young people within the country through entrepreneurship promotion.

Music to the young ears? Wait. There’s something more….

 
The government also plans to introduce laws, policies and working procedures as well as amend the existing instruments to make foreign employment safe, dignified and systematic. 

For producing skilled human resources as per the demand in the international market, the government aims to expand the Vocational Skill Development Training Academy.
Let’s hope and pray that this dual focus on creating jobs within the country and sending skilled youth abroad for jobs works like a Ramvaan.

With the government consisting of the largest and the second largest parties in the parliament in power, impossible is nothing, right?

 

Education can't wait

On the education front, the government plans to enact the School Education Bill through this session of the parliament itself.

It may be noted that teachers of community schools throughout the country staged a month-long Kathmandu-centric protest recently, as part of their struggle to press for the passage of a School Education Bill through the incorporation of their demands mentioned in agreements reached with successive governments, including the one reached on September 22, 2023. 

What’s more, the government is to bring uniformity in the curricula of private and community schools. Upon completion of school education, the plan is to enrol students into technical and vocational education on the basis of their grades. 

The government aims to mainstream the technical stream by taking it to the university level, pledging virtual teaching-learning system, student counselling, interactive learning and mentoring. That’s a great vision, let’s hope that it’s actionable too                                                                                                       

The farm sector
And how can this administration forget agriculture, the mainstay of the national economy?

Per the policy document, the government, through machination and specialization, aims to transform subsistence-based agriculture, making the country self-reliant on farm yields. 

Restructuring of the Nepal Agricultural Research Council and making it farmer-friendly and result-oriented and upgradation of quarantine and lab services constitute part of the big plan on the farm front. 

Also, the government plans to manufacture vaccines needed for animals and poultry within the country and produce as well as export milk, milk-based products and meat-based products. 

Increased connectivity

On the transport front, the government plans to introduce National Transport Policy, Public Vehicles and Transport Management Act, Public Roads Act and Road Safety Act.

For reducing road accidents, it plans to improve the condition of roads, conduct passenger-oriented awareness programs and make drivers (more) responsible by enhancing their skills.                                                                                                  



Then comes the great vision, with the policy document planning to  develop and upgrade major highways, making them part of inter-country road networks, while developing and expanding railways.      
One wonders as to how much more of our precious land will these mega connectivity projects eat up and what benefits will they bring, given a  very weak export potential except for the ‘export’ of semi-skilled or unskilled human resources and a lax security situation where anyone can enter this country through a porous border 24/7 for myriad reasons, exacerbating security risks for this country and her powerful neighbours. One wonders whether increased connectivity and lax security arrangements won’t end up triggering a humanitarian crisis with a never-ending inflow of displaced populations from the extended neighborhood and unabated encroachment upon and chipping away of our territories where the state is spread far too thin. The focus should have been on keeping a limited number of cross-border contact points open in view of heightened security concerns of this country in a perpetual flux and her neighbors and upping border security. At a time when even the global superpower is shutting its borders, can we afford to keep our borders open?

Like its previous editions, this policy document also has a grand vision and this columnist did his best to bring some of the key highlights to the readers’ notice.   
Skepticism aside, here’s hoping that the worst does not happen, that only the best happens and we the Nepalis get to live happily in this land of milk and honey instead of having to wait life after life after life to live a life of pleasure and plenty in the high heavens of Amarawati, Sukhawati Bhuwan, Saketlok, Baikuntha, Golok, Swarga, etc.