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Posted
on 23-Jan-04 01:27 PM
Bagmati Corridor
This has been the talk of town since Munjushree cut the Chovar canyon with his sword; the shortest, fastest and safest way to connect Kathmandu with Tarai with a road that runs parallel with Bagmati River. We have heard about it in schools, colleges, radio, tv and every time monsoon rain blocks road either at KrishnaBhir or at Malekhu or at some other places. I have personally read 4th 5th plan year (2030- 2035 BS or somewhere near that year) that Government of India is helping build a railroad to connect Kathmandu with Tarai via this route. Time comes and goes and nothing happens and we hear about it again during monsoon months and during election years (when is next ?). Besides that nothing..... We always travel extra 200 KM and 8 hours evertime we make a trip to eastern Nepal and it is happening forever for millions of us. I think it is time to ask some serious questions why it is still not built and if government officials and politicians are not doing anything, as they always , why can't we do it ourselves and save money, time and show it as our model development process.
We have already established ourselves as a world leader in community forestry and community school programs and similarly we can establish ourselves again as a leader on community based development. It would be the biggest and most ambitious project ever attempted on this scale.
We can establish a co-opeartive or a public company which will build the road and collect tolls from traffic. By the very nature of project itself, it will make money from the day 1 with very less risk. It will be very tempting to reach Birgunj in 2 hours from Kathmandu and I don't think anyone will find excuses not to use this route. Depending upon the initial investment and regular maintaince cost, we will set some return on investment percentage and hence set the toll.
Finance:
We can pay all landowners on the right of way upfront or pay them with company shares. If we pay with company shares, we don't have to pay upfront that saves a lot and it will create the awareness and personal relation of project with among local community. It will in turn raise the personal feeling of " hey this is my property and I need to take care and protect my property" If local people gets involved in this project there is not way it can fail. Lot of things like landslide, river control, reforestration, monitoring roads during constrution and operation can be done very cheaply and effectively with locals . Other options to raise money are like floating shares on local market. Our market is full with money. If a company goes public and float share for 10 million, there will be applicaiton to buy 1000 million. We only need to make sure that project is going to be profitable enough to pay dividend. We can also finance by bond backed by government, just to make sure. And we can work with government to make interest income on that bond tax free so that big institutions and rich individuals have incentive to invest on the project. In addition to all these internal source, there is always donor countries and agencies that might help us without much strings attached .
Construction:
We need to run this project transparently so that people will have faith on company and its officials. At this point it is very important to make sure people know what we are doing and its possible ramification. We need to make almost all the project related documents public for nominal fee including tender documents, and technical specificaton. With all the process and procedures open, public and media can go and measure the thickness of asphalt and be able to raise questions like why it is less than what they agreed on tender documents. In the same way they will know if lesser quality of brick or cement was used during construction. If we do this, public will be involved on construcion and maintaince phase itself and it will be very difficult to cover any irregularities.
If a single company/organization cannot handle this on its own, we can pull together multiple coroporation/co-operatives/individuals for different parts of the project. We must make sure that they all tied together by a Board of directors and all adhere to the same standards while building and maintaining their share of corridor.
Fringe Benefits:
1. We can lease our land to private sector to lay optical fiber cable to india's fiber network. This about possibility, cheap broadband service to kathamnduties 24 hours a day and cheap international calling rates
2. In few years we can also build a railroad parallel to this road to carry bulk of goods or passenger trains itself
3. What about electricity generation from Bagmati...The existing Kulkhani project is built on one of the Bagmati's tributaries, Kulkhani river. I heard on news few days back that a German Company has already conducted feasibility study of the hydel project and suggesting we can generate 140 MW of power in addition of flood control downstream.
4. This high lake can be used as a fish pond and/or as a lake for recreation purpose very close to populated city
Risks:
I haven't seen a lot of risk at this time except for government attitude towards its people. If we can make it a co-operative or a public company then we can isolate ourselves from direct government interference and succeed. We also need to make sure government pass some rule to protect our investment by not allowing competing road to connect Tarai and Kathamndu like Kathmandu-Heutanda tunnel.
I am inviting to all business enterpreneurs, MBAs, and grass roots movement organizations and SajhaBasi to discuss this in public and see if we can implement in our own without wasting anymore time. If we wait thinking government or some other countires will do for us, it will never happen. We can do it. There are so many people in Nepal now that they think they can make a difference by making impact on its people or its economy. There are already a few of those example and I think there must be a leader among those who is bold enough to take this as a challange and prove his leadership and enterprenuer skills.
At last:
104 KM to Tarai from Kathmandu ... think all possibilities
2 hours to Birgunj... yahoooooooooooooooooo
Please share your thoughts....
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