REPUBLICA
Generational shift in UML leadership
In an interview with this daily last week, chairman of CPN (UML) Jhalanath Khanal had expressed his concern that the scheduled election for the party’s leadership would create a rift in the party which might take considerable time and efforts to heal. “We will have to expend our energy in managing the internal conflict, which will not benefit the party in the long run,” he had told Republica. Though some important leaders might be voted out in this race, Khanal was hopeful that the convention will elect young, vibrant and competent leaders if the election is held. UML has evolved as one of the major parties in the past decades and has played a key role in many of the country’s revolutions. Thus, any new development within the party will have a major impact on the overall political scenario of the country. Therefore, the general public has been closely watching the on-going ninth National Congress of the party which is set to elect a new leadership. Holding an election to choose the leadership is always a democratic practice which would not only make any political outfit vibrant but would also provide opportunities to the younger generation to move up.
Despite being the Marxist Leninist party in name, UML has evolved into a democratic force and has remained the most democratic of parties as far as its decision-making process is concerned. Compared to other major parties like Nepali Congress (NC) and UCPN (Maoist), UML has managed to involve the lower level cadres in the party’s decisions through its mechanisms. We have recently seen how the power struggle within UCPN (Maoist) forced the party to conduct the election of its central committee without the participation of the dissenting faction and it has not been able to sort out the differences even now, months after the election. And, despite being a democratic force in theory, NC has hardly been able to practice democracy in the party organization. Even as the party now leads the coalition government, the decision was never taken by its central working committee (CWC), which is yet to take full shape four years after its formation. It has always been leader-centric while taking crucial decisions.
In this context, the likely election for the UML leadership would set yet another precedent of democratic practice which other parties need to follow. But this could turn into a missed opportunity if the party fails to address the concerns expressed by chairman Khanal that this election should not create a serious rift between the two candidates—Madhav Kumar Nepal and KP Sharma Oli and their supporters. It might take considerable time to bridge the gap between the two sides after the election, but it should not be the basis for further polarization between them. The power struggle seen during this Congress should come to an end as soon as the election is over. We are not in favor of rifts in any party in the country, as they could have negative impact on the national politics. And, more importantly, this election should be taken as an opportunity for generational transition for which the party representatives should prefer
electing youth leaders who can take charge after this leadership’s tenure is over. The political parties, especially UML at this time, should understand that it is high time the generational shift in the leadership should be the main focus to take the party forward in the days ahead.
2
MAHABIR PAUDYAL
Constituency Dev Fund
Lawmakers have been reviled over their collective demand for Rs 50 million to be spent on their discretion for each electoral constituency. In a country where people have to flow a lot of blood and sweat in the Gulf and the Middle East to sustain livelihood public backlash on such an outlandish demand is just natural. Fifty million rupees is colossal money! Public rage has magnified also because lawmakers themselves have established that development funds are meant to warm their own pockets or to be distributed as largesse to their cadres.
With ruling Nepali Congress officially standing in its favor and both CPN-UML and UCPN(Maoist) giving nod to this controversial decision, it is highly likely that the government will increase the parliamentary development fund from current one million, if not to 50 million as has been demanded, in the upcoming budget. This despite clear possibility that distributing equal money in each constituency could widen already wide disparities between developed and underdeveloped districts, and despite fierce media opposition. But that is beside the point. The real issue is what encouraged the lawmakers to push for this issue largely viewed as “blatant loot” of the state coffers. Why they are standing with unrelenting determination to get it even after the civil society, anti-corruption watchdogs, bureaucrats and National Planning Commission have unanimously opposed it? And why ruling parties are more vocal about this scheme? This article will try to answer these questions.
Admit it or not, collective hubris of NC and UML over their electoral gains in the CA polls is at the root of this demand. These lawmakers (most of whom are the old faces from the 1990s politics who virtually milked the national coffers dry) have started to take people for granted. The popular mood among NC and UML apparatchiks seems to be: “Since people have voted us to power despite our failings and wrongdoings of the 1990s who are the media to oppose us?”
There are good reasons for people to believe that lawmakers are going to pocket good portion, or all, of 50 million. There is a proven track record of development fund being misused. Often such money is spent for local clubs manned by cadres of the respective parties or on projects that do not even exist. With the cases of lawmakers failing to furnish the expenditure details, general perception is that the proposed scheme is only going to be a big drain on national economy. And as the cliché goes perception rather than reality matters in politics. Besides, the elected lawmakers have invested great deal of money (some of them as much as one million rupees) to secure victory in the CA polls. Some are reported to be in big debt.
All this has left enough room for people to suspect that 50 million-demand is a coordinated plan of the parties to compensate for those losses. Another suspicion is that they are going to make it a good investment to consolidate their base for the next election (local or national). Neither individual lawmakers nor their parent parties have been able to counter these speculations with convincing arguments. If the lawmakers had pressed for creating a strong mechanism to strictly check possible misuse and offered to prosecute themselves if their complicity in embezzlement was proved before they demanded 50 million, their intention would not have been questioned. Good-intentioned leaders would have told the people: “We want this budget exclusively for constituency development, if we misuse it you can send us to jail.” NC UML silence over their lawmakers’ threat to obstruct budget proceeding if the demand is not met has added credence to public speculation that they are all working in collusion to allocate 50 million to lawmakers so they and their own party cadres, not the people, can reap its benefits. So what should be done?
Submit
To call all lawmakers chor (thieves), as is the norm in Nepal, would be rather uncivilized. Lawmakers are the legitimate voices of people in a democracy. There is public resentment against them because people have felt betrayed time and again. The only way to discipline them is to rein them in when they commit wrongdoings and award them when they do good. Before deciding on 50-million case or increasing current one million fund, it would be best to test their intention. This scribe has following proposal in mind.
Let us propose to form a powerful Commission much like CIAA which will exclusively look into whether the development fund is being spent in the right way, for the right purpose and in the right place. If misuse is suspected anyone can file complaint against the culprits without having to disclose their names. Perhaps we can learn from India. The southern neighbor allocates as much as Rs 50 million (IC) to the elected lawmaker under Local Area Development Scheme. Lawmakers are entitled to spend this money for the development of their respective constituencies. But all spending needs to be transparent, monitored and audited by the government body. If the MP is found misusing it s/he can be blacklisted and cannot file candidacy in the next election.
We can add some more conditions. Let us institute a system in which the lawmaker can get the fund only in installments (say Rs 0.5 million after the credible proposal is submitted, one million after ensuring that development work has made a good progress). It should be somehow like paying the lawmakers for the works they have done, not handing them cash in advance. The proposed Commission will visit the field and ask the people if any misuse has been committed and conduct public auditing before recommending Ministry of Finance to release the budget. There should be a strong provision to sentence the lawmakers to jail if they are found to have embezzled the fund.
Fifty million rupees can change the face of a constituency if it is properly utilized. It can build a good number of school buildings in villages, construct around 50 drinking water projects and make rural roads. This fund could provide lawmakers with the opportunity to prove their potentials. Thus it would also be worthwhile to make a provision of rewarding those who use the budget for welfare of the people.
An honest lawmaker will have no problem in accepting abovementioned conditions. If they don’t, it proves they want to “loot” the state coffers for personal gains. Then we can close this chapter without second thought. If they are not committed to ensuring transparency, accountability and fairness while spending development budget, they do not even deserve one million rupees. Monthly perks and allowances they receive is already about four times the income of a commoner.
When state actors to fail to enforce rule of law, protect the most fundamental civil and political rights, provide basic services to the people like functioning education and health system and transportation infrastructure, say Leo E Rose and Subho Basu in Paradise Lost?, their extraction of resources from the state becomes an act of banditry. Nepal has been a perfect case of rulers acting like roving bandits—who collect taxes from people and use them only to serve their interests.
The fear among the public is that lawmakers are going to give continuity to this state sponsored banditry in the name of constituency development fund. They need to dispel this doubt forever. If they had done so a decade ago, they would have been much respected by now, if they had thought about it even five years ago, it would have made a lot of difference.
3
BHOJ RAJ POUDEL
CPN-UML Chairman Jhalanath Khanal had recently visited China. No one knew the purpose of his visit (I doubt even he did). Back from China, he has presented a paper in the general convention of the party, which is in the verge of choosing new leadership. The paper does not make clear the future direction of the party. This lack of clarity might be intentional. But what is very clear is that Khanal was very impressed by Chinese hospitality.
The top level CPN-UML political leaders including Khanal must be aware of the concerns of neighboring countries. Nepal’s development should not be a byproduct of China and India’s strategic interests. There is a lot to gain from both the neighbors but there should be internal homework and strategically designed policies in place for development. China and India both are interested in giving financial support to develop certain infrastructures. That would be helpful for Nepal to grow but this alone will not lead the country towards prosperity.
The paper presented in the general convention also has a faulty analysis about the geopolitics, global economic framework and capitalism. It is marred by misinterpretation. The major flaw is about the development and market-driven economy. Yes, capitalistic system has many flaws. But stating that it is coming to the end is foolish. There is a tendency of calling capitalistic system as “Western Capitalism”. Well, the idea started from the West but countries have been able to prosper with that system.
Khanal thinks that there should be a lesson learnt from China as it is opening up. President Xi Jinping has been repeatedly saying that more power will be given to the market and policies have been reformed accordingly.
China is able to implement right policies at the right time with right pace in order to achieve economic growth. This hasn’t been possible in other countries. There are clear examples of failure in many parts of the world even though they adopted capitalistic system. But that was mainly due to failure of proper implementation of programs at the right time.
Submit
Nepal will definitely benefit from the rise of China. But what would be India’s reaction to that? China has a clear ‘non-intervention’ policy but still huge presence of China through financial support and infrastructure development in Nepal can concern India. The Indian policy in Nepal is not even a ‘foreign policy’. It is merely a security issue handled by intelligence agency, which does not care much about development issues and human conditions.
It would not be exaggeration to say that Nepal is one of the countries in the world led by worst leaders. These leaders lack confidence in what they want to do. They have inferiority complex with Indians. Worse, they think nationalism is the only way to gain people’s support. Leaders like Shinzo Abe in Japan and Narendra Modi in India are the worst examples to follow. Their nationalistic appeal will not be sustainable in the long term. Japan’s recent change in its constitution related to weapons and defense is not something Asians want. CPN-UML leaders should know that if they are thinking of nationalism for their political career, it will not help, especially in Nepal, which is sandwiched between two giants.
History tells us that using nationalism for political career is done only by coward leaders. In the domestic context, most of the communist parties and their leaders use ‘nationalism’ for their career. But the irony is that the same leaders curry favor from Indian intelligence agency to meet their petty personal interests. This is clearly shown in the paper Khanal presented in the party convention. The main reason of being intentionally unclear about the message is his Indian fear. He probably remembers that he was the only Prime Minister not invited by either of the neighboring countries for state visit during his tenure.
In relation to India, the new leadership of Modi is not desirable even though he achieved a landslide victory in the election. He believes in superstition and his ideas are not guided by scientific reasoning. Last week, inaugurating around 25 kilometers long new railway line in Katra, Jammu, he said that this railway connection would bring devotees closer to Maa Vaishno Devi. So if the Prime Minister of India builds transport system to bring Hindu devotees closer to their god and goddesses, what about people of other faiths? It is doubtful that this development model will lead India towards a more tolerant and prosperous society.
Nepal’s geo-position is claimed to have strategic importance. There is a discussion going on that Nepal can be a ‘vibrant-bridge’ between China and India, which was basically floated by former King Gyanendra Shah. It was later picked up by former Prime Minister Pushpakamal Dahal. But China and India haven’t shown any interest in using Nepal as a bridge to get closer. If Nepal’s political leaders think that they get enough respect and attention from China and India, they are deceiving themselves.
Therefore, Nepal should have its own development policies that can be implemented within certain time in order to have economic prosperity. But that does not seem to be happening in the foreseeable future since there is no political leadership with a clear vision of development. Their thoughts are guided by what they see just in front of them. Sheer inability to see strategic direction of the current situation is the main problem of most of the leaders, clearly reflected in the convention paper of CPN-UML.
By the end of April Uprising in 2006, people cheered up not for what they had in hand but for seemingly better future—equal political-social rights and economic prosperity. The end of feudal social arrangement, loud voices from different ethnic groups and political leaders’ fresh commitment to deliver as per people’s expectation had ignited a light of hope.
Unfortunately, almost nothing has been done since then. There is not even a sign of drafting a new constitution, forget economic prosperity and social-political advancement. So, what’s wrong with us? Who should be held accountable for this failure and waste of eight years? I am afraid it is leaders like Khanal who deceive themselves with myopic vision.
3
SEEMA PANDEY
Federalism threat
The contentious issues hindering the constitution-drafting process are yet to arrive and the prospect of the draft constitution within a year looks slim. Federalism brings the fear of geo-security of a state along with it, given that Nepal has recently witnessed the events in Ukraine. Crimea’s vote for joining Russia must have instilled reasonable fear in Nepal regarding territorial integrity.
Our neighbour China has been known for its non-interference principle. However, the geo-economics dynamism and growing cooperation between China and Russia has perhaps made China react softer in the context of Russia’s military intervention.
China abstained from voting the UN resolution affirming commitment to the sovereignty, political independence, unity and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders. Its soft position on Russia’s illegal intervention raises plenty of doubts. Only last year China and Russia had allied together against the intervention on Syria, following the alleged use of chemical weapons by Assad regime.
It is clear that Russia now stands in contradiction to its previous position over Syria. China tried its best to demonstrate itself as practitioner of the core Chinese principle of non-intervention by vetoing in support, like in Syria. But it chose to abstain in Crimea. This abstention is controversial because an emerging world power like China should stand with firmness and clarity in such matters.
Unlike the US and the EU who continue to call the referendum illegal and have been imposing sanctions on selected Russian and Ukrainian companies, China has not practiced any such sanctions. Western sanctions imply rejection and criticism for breaching a state’s territorial integrity and also a warning to respect states’ sovereignty and integrity. Through sanctions, it is necessary to send a message that borders are not merely a suggestion, but a solid fact, and that the boundaries shouldn’t be crossed.
Chinese firmness on voting against Russia might have been more understandable, given that China is clearly against separatist movement due to its multi-ethnicities in certain regions including Tibet. A vote against Russia instead of abstention may have raised China’s image as a firm and an ethical follower of its principle of non-intervention. It was not as firm as it was during the resolution of non-intervention on Syria. Abstention perhaps points towards China’s cautious but subtle support to Russia.
Submit
However, it is more alarming to see India’s reaction to Crimea secession. The government of India was the first major country to recognize the annexation of Crimea and was in the list that abstained on the resolution supporting the territorial integrity of Ukraine. It justified its decision by saying that it was the choice of Crimeans. All this creates a massive geostrategic security concern for Nepal.
Russia, a close neighbor to India, has once again exemplified the use of ethnic lines and self-determination as a tool to expand territorial power, not that India has not practiced something similar in Sikkim. Given this scenario, it may not be absurd to worry about Nepal’s security in relation to its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Future may provide India such opportunities or they may be created where three of the BRIC states (India, China and Russia) may hold a similar position in term of Nepal’s secession for one or the other reason. Russia would not clearly support Nepal’s territorial integrity over the self-determination of the people as it may not have a moral to do so and China may not stand firm with a strong opposition to such decisions. But it will certainly create enormous security dilemma for Nepal.
Given that there are far too many things common between the Madheshi people and the northern India (Bihar) like geographical contiguity, language, culture, religion and identity symbols, future threats of national disintegration seem to be overwhelmingly present in the popular debates. Such contentious debates will make federalism issue even more complicated.
The Crimean case proves that external threat of military intervention and internal threat of secession, due to unconsolidated and non-integrated identities, still undermines state’s security. Nepal may not be different and might have to face similar future as of Ukraine. Moreover, considering that the Madhesh region is the most productive region of Nepal, secession of this particular territory could make Nepal handicapped and so weak that it is obliged to surrender. So the threat is not only over losing a piece of territory but also of existence.
National integration is the most alarming need of Nepal after witnessing Russia, India and China’s reaction to Crimea secession. Secession takes place due to lack of ethnic integration, discrimination, lack of identity narratives embedded in the history, remorse and absence of a symbol that unites its people. It is a challenging job in a multi-cultural state like Nepal to consolidate its nations.
Nepal is the oldest state with defined borders (more or less) in the South Asian region (suggesting that most of states in the region were formed after WWII following decolonization) and the logic and validity of its oldest existence is owing to the efforts of the Shah rulers. It is globally noticeable that states were formed of both will and force and all the oldest states of the world have more or less similar pattern of formation. As for a state to exist in the current form, it needs to provide historical narratives to prove the legitimacy of its existence.
In other words, the history of struggle to exist as a separate entity gives a moral and legal component to the legitimacy of any states. Most of the oldest states in the world therefore tend to preserve their history and memories. Most often such states have a monarch as a symbol of its history. Some examples of the oldest states of the world like United Kingdom, Spain, Netherlands and other have been preserving their monarchs as a symbol of history along with a tribute for the struggle they made to form the very state.
Symbolic or ceremonial monarch could serve as legitimacy for the Nepali state and could be the very thread that all cultures and ethnicities can relate to. Provided that Shahs were the symbol and a historical narrative for existence and sustenance of Nepal, a symbolic monarch can become the most persuasive symbol and a legitimate reason for them to be unified under one state system amidst the cultural diversity.
All of the oldest states of the world have preserved monarchs symbolically. Thus it will be immoral and unethical to reject the history.
4 Serious initiation necessary
With the much-awaited visit of Indian foreign minister and prime minister to Nepal being worked out, the government officials here are expecting a major cooperation between the two countries in the hydropower sector which would benefit the both. The Indian envoy to Nepal, Ranjit Rae, has already begun his homework to facilitate the visit by meeting concerned government officials in which he has assured of a major economic package. The booming economy of our close neighbor India has become one of the most important topics of discussions lately as we believe that Nepal could benefit a lot from it. Due to its strategic location too, Nepal has no other option than to find ways to further its cooperation with the southern neighbor and begin charting the course to build a prosperous Nepal. And, development of one key sector that could benefit both Nepal and India is the hydropower sector, as Nepal has immense potential but has not been able to harness it. Along with the economic growth, India will need a huge amount of energy in the immediate future and Nepal has the capacity to fulfill that need. Therefore, any cooperation between the two countries in the hydropower development would be beneficial to both the countries.
Good news is that cooperation in the hydropower sector has already begun, as few Indian companies have already received the licenses to survey and build different hydropower projects. However, due to the lack of Power Trade Agreement (PTA) between the two countries, the investors are yet to be assured of the outcome. Hence, the government officials, while talking to this daily, have put the signing of PTA high on the agenda for the Indian dignitaries’ visits. PTA would not only open Nepal’s energy market to the southern neighbor but also attract investment from multi-national companies. Thus, the government officials here expect that the visit of Indian foreign minister Sushma Swaraj in the third week of July and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s likely visit in August would help create an environment to move further ahead in the much-needed cooperation in the hydropower sector. And the signing of PTA would be a good beginning.
The government has even included PTA with India in its policies and programs for the upcoming fiscal year. Those in the know believe that PTA would not only pave the way for power trading, but also assure and encourage investors who are still hesitant to invest due to lack of market assurance. Though Nepal sent a proposal for PTA in 2010, India remained silent. However, India has recently forwarded a proposal saying that it is ready for ‘energy cooperation’, according to government officials. Dhalkebar-Mujaffarpur transmission line is already under construction while another cross-border transmission line linking Bardaghat of Nepal to Gorakhpur of India is currently under study. And the Indian ambassador Rae is known to have told our energy minister that India wants to speed up the works on Pancheshwar Multi Purpose Project by establishing a joint project implementation office in Kanchanpur. These are some of the positive indications coming from the Indian side which could actually kick off the much-needed cooperation in the hydropower sector. One thing is sure. Signing of PTA could boost the much-needed confidence between the two countries, as both sides need to work out the details by guaranteeing a mutual benefit. The upcoming visits of the Indian dignitaries are definitely a good opportunity to begin this cooperation in earnest.
6 Load-shedding or the rolling electricity blackouts that have been in place over the last few years could come to an end with a single stroke of the “Delete” key. For that, we’ll need to take a deep breath, believe in ourselves and strike the “Delete” key with conviction.
Load-shedding in Nepal could come to an end if Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) stops doing two things: First, it must stop planning for load-shedding; and second it must “Delete” or stop publishing the load-shedding schedule. This wouldn’t immediately bring demand and supply into balance—after all, the current load-shedding is because of insufficient supply.
NEA would still need to resort to load-shedding to bring supply and demand into balance. It would have to continue resorting to load-shedding, except it would have to do it randomly across circles, rather than using a pre-determined rolling weekly load-shedding schedule for each circle.
If NEA were to actually stop publishing the load-shedding schedule and start to randomly enforce rolling blackout, there is a real risk that a large number of people may gather outside NEA offices around the country in protest. People could pelt stones, barricade NEA offices, even burn it down, in which case there will be no NEA left at all, no electricity supply at all and, therefore, no blackouts to contend with.
But the Nepali people are smarter than that.
Having lived through a long and violent uprising in the expectation of a better future only to be denied one, they now realize that pointing the gun at each other, or resorting to gunda-gardi (hooliganism) may not always get you what you want. Rather than barricade NEA offices, protest or cause mayhem, the Nepali people will instead groan, moan, curse under their breath and get on with their lives. The cleverer ones will find a way to coax donors into supporting even more conferences on improving electricity supply. Life will go on.
And that is the point at which load-shedding will begin to disappear and the space for innovative distributed solutions that isn’t reliant solely on NEA will open up.
Every country goes through shortages and surpluses in electricity markets much like the fluctuations of a business cycle. Nepal is no exception. But different countries have different ways of responding to an imbalance between demand and supply in electricity market.
In the United States, for example, electricity markets went through a period of sustained shortages in the mid-to-late nineties. This was followed by an equally long and sustained period of surpluses.
There are several competitive power markets in the United States. In those markets, shortages were expressed through power prices which routinely exceeded $10,000 per mega-watt hour (or NPR 1,000/unit). Generators demanded this price and buyers paid it. Attracted by these prices many new generators flooded into the market. Within a few years there was excess generation capacity. Electricity prices slumped and generators were unable to recover their costs.
US electricity markets responded to the slump, this time with bankruptcies and closures. Many energy companies went broke, others were forced to merge and several billions of dollars of investments sank. There was plenty of heartache, plenty of finger pointing but at the end, the markets had adjusted demand and supply. Life went on.
Submit
Like in the US, a period of shortages in generation as Nepal is experiencing is not abnormal. The question is how we respond to it.
US has robust competitive markets, at least in some of the key states. Shortages and surpluses are expressed through changes in prices, which provide the incentives to correct the imbalance. On the other hand, Nepal’s response to power shortages was a weekly schedule of load-shedding that said when power would go off and for how long.
The purpose of the analogy is not to contrast the market and institutional framework of Nepal against that of the US. That would be irrelevant. The point of the comparison is to illustrate the real tragedy of Nepal’s load shedding.
The second worst thing that NEA did was incorrectly judge demand and supply a few years ago. For that it can be forgiven. But the absolute worst thing it ever did—for which it cannot be forgiven—was to have a system of announced rolling power cuts, the weekly load-shedding schedule. The tragedy in Nepal’s power crisis is not that we have electricity shortages. The real tragedy with Nepal’s current power crisis is how we responded to those shortages.
The load shedding schedule forced consumers to respond. Armed with the weekly schedule, people began to reorient their lives. Batteries and inverters, most of them of poor quality, sold briskly. People woke up at odd hours to iron their clothes. Children were taught by their parents to switch off their computers, stop reading and instead to go to sleep early or loiter in the neighborhood with their friends.
With the load-shedding schedule, Nepal didn’t respond to the electricity crisis, it simply forced everyone to adapt to it. It snubbed Nepal’s psyche and killed her hopes of a recovery or if not that, set it back several decades.
Nepal’s ongoing electricity crisis may have cost it several percentage points in its economic growth. But that’s not where it should hurt. Even a flood or an unexpected calamity can cause a large economic loss. The question is how we respond to a crisis and build the basis of a recovery.
The easy convenience of a load-shedding schedule has paralyzed our chances for a recovery. People have adjusted. They are willing to wake up at three am to iron their shirts. Businesses have learned to adjust. Hotels are prepared to tell their guests, “Sorry, the air conditioner won’t work because there is no electricity.”
There is no urgency for improvement—just a decline to adjustment. With 18 hours of power cuts, an improvement to 16 hours in the next few years will still seem like a good thing—but is it really?
NEA’s forecast that there will be a surplus supply of electricity by 2017-2018 is in part a direct bias of the load-shedding schedule. The reason there could be a surplus is because there is hardly any demand growth. And the reason there is no demand growth is because everyone—people and industries—have adjusted to life with the load shedding schedule.
If you have learned to live with 18 hours of power cuts, nobody can quite imagine what they would do with 24 hours of continuous reliable power supply. If you can’t imagine it, you certainly won’t demand it.
Rather than the load shedding itself, it is the use of the load-shedding schedule as the response strategy that has killed Nepal’s long-terms prospects for improvement.
In this crisis, the government has missed an opportunity to allow for some fresh out of the box thinking on Nepal’s energy issue. It has continued to promote the same tired-out solutions: more plants, bigger plants, longer transmission lines and deeper grid extension. Nepal needs a broader portfolio of smarter energy use, distributed solutions, micro-gri