The Baidya's Backyard Loaha Hiti Chronicle
by the Baidyas of San Diego
The Baidya's Backyard Loaha Hiti Chronicle
by the Baidyas of San Diego
KATHMANDU-based marketing officer of an Indian product, Narayan Dhungel, who is in his mid-thirties, left Nepalgunj in 1975 and moved to Kathmandu, Nepal's most pampered city. It was well laid-out then, the air was fragrant and driving was a pleasant going. He had stepped into modernity, he told himself. But 22 years later, Kathmandu Valley's population has soared from 7,66,345 in 1981 to 11,05,379 in 1991. Power and water shortages are endemic, housing is under tremendous pressure, industrial units are poisoning the air and driving has turned into a nightmare.
When it rains, the city almost drowns. The drains chokes, electricity fails, telephones go dead and public transportation gets paralyzed owing to flooded areas. Epidemics follow. All this is a testimony to Kathmandu's decay. Its residents sweltered all through the summer under long power cuts - often for seven hours a day in some places.
Kathmandu has simply been growing far too fast. With Kathmandu's 4821 hectares of city area, there has been an almost 200 percent growth since 1951, while Biratnagar grew by 95 percent during that period. More than 350 new vehicles come on to the roads daily, one in every four minutes. With over 700,000 of population in Kathmandu city, the capital houses over 70 percent of all the vehicles of the country.
Though 120,000 vehicles log over 442 kilometers, roads daily, roads are grossly inadequate, forcing people to organize their own means of transport. This is most telling when it comes to the number of vehicles per transport. This is most telling when it comes to the number of vehicles per person which is 1:15. While the road length of the capital stands at ease, the number of vehicles is rising astronomically. This is aptly made clear by the fact that there are 125 vehicles for each kilometer. In 1986, there were only 30,000 vehicles plying over 943 kilometers of Valley's roads (including earthen, gravel and concrete). If parked bumper to bumper, vehicles in the capital would clog up 25 percent of the city's roads, which were designed for a maximum of 60,000 people. With such activity, Kathmandu has become the most dangerous city to drive in, with about 300 accident deaths in a year. This is amply supported by the fact that there were only 150 accident deaths during 2038/39 which has alarmingly risen unto 2372 during 2052/53 registering a 16-fold increase within 15 years.
At busy intersections, Narayan's eyes smart from vehicular emissions. Over 1,000 tons of pollutants are spewed out daily worries him. A decade ago, it was just 80 tons. Narayan decided to get one of the over 400 pollution masks sold daily. But it could not keep out toxic fumes. He knows that carbon monoxide, which can mix with the blood 200 times faster than oxygen, is doing irreversible damage restricting the supply of blood to his body tissues. He does not smoke but traveling to him on the city roads is as good as smoking 20 cigarettes a day.
That's not all. Narayan knows that nitrogen oxide fumes can affect his lungs while hydrocarbons can cause heart and respiratory diseases, headaches and lung cancer. Particulate matter emitted along with vehicle exhaust gases could penetrate deep into the respiratory system, irritating lung tissues and causing long-term disorders. There was no escape - for every ton of petrol consumed, a vehicle spewed around 500 kg of pollutants. Narayan's job as a marketing man entails a lot of traveling. Small wonder then that he is one of the many thousands Kathmanduites who suffer from respiratory ailments. The moment he visits the chest specialist, he realizes what pollution has done to him - bronchial asthma and breathlessness which don't respond to the treatment. Is there any way out? "Yes", comes the reply from the doctor - "Leave Kathmandu forever".
In what bewilders Narayan most is the deteriorating health of his ten-year-old daughter, Sima. For the last year, she has been suffering from severe bouts of asthma. Kathmandu has the highest rate of asthma in the country.
The more Narayan studied about Kathmandu's environment, the more depressed he became. When two years ago, the minister of population and environment casually told the parliament that "although pollution levels were increasing, it was within safe limits in Kathmandu", Narayan was furious. And he was right, for he knew that World Health Organization had labeled Kathmandu as one of the most polluted cities in the world.
In such a situation, only traders like textile designer Deepak Goel, who has diversified into pollution masks, have all the more reasons to be happy: "I've a bright future. Moving around Kathmandu without masks will soon be impossible". And it's not just vehicular pollution alone. Thousands of small scale industries (mostly brick-kiln industries) have mushroomed, belching out toxic fumes and smoke. Many are fly-by-night operators and just ignore the rules. And the administration is too weak to crack them down.
Since Narayan migrated 22 years ago, Kathmandu's population has registered an increase of about 500 percent. He saw migrants swelling the population year after year, coming in for construction work, mainly from the poorest of the poor areas. They are rootless here and care little for the city. Narayan often wonders how Kathmandu will end up eventually. It seems incredible that a pampered city with an annual outlay of rupees 750 million is going to seed. Traffic officials talk of enforcing extreme steps: making parking very expensive, banning obsolete vehicles, incentives for those who travel in the pool cars and so on. But if these measures don't work, we will be forced to pack up and leave when it finally becomes absolutely unbearable? If that is the choice, it's no choice at all. "We have failed on almost everyone of these accounts. Dealing with Kathmandu's state of life requires coordination of policies among different departments - Department of Roads, Transport Management Department, Traffic Police and above all Kathmandu Metropolitan Office," Narayan laments.
"In Kathmandu, none of these bodies can talk to each other or develop coherent policies. The planners must play their role of coordination, but it has never done anything beyond routine book-keeping. Every politician, every bureaucrat, seems intent on playing it safe unwilling to take any risk.
"As a result, we may end up meekly accepting what it is there," he adds. What then are the lessons that could guide us in thinking differently?
The only option is to accept the broad existing framework!
