| Biswo |
Posted
on 26-Dec-01 06:36 PM
*****
In Nepalgunj, he paid five times the normal price for a ticket to that district
headquarter in Karnali. The scalper said, " Sir, I know the man in ticket counter.
Next time, you need ticket, just come to me."
He was, after an intense effort to get an airplane ticket, at the district
headquarter of that far flung shanty town in Karnali Zone. As he got off the plane, he knew he was trapped in a place from where getting out and getting to Kathmandu would be in itself an adventure.
Some People were lining up in a depo. Their cheeks were bloodless, and their eyes
were sans any shining. The old man he talked to was waiting there for two hours.
He found out they were waiting to get the discount rice. The government spends
Rs 3,500 per packet to send rice there. Nobody ever thought that the cumulative cost of sending those rice there could have been a significant budget for making a
network of road there.Afterall, it is just a few hundred kilometers from Pokhara.
The man got about three kilograms of decayed rice after waiting for hours. And
then he started eating some (a few Muthi) rice right in front of him: uncooked. For
some people, rice was such an important produce.
************
He asked why people there eat rice? Why not they eat something that is grown
there? Like barley, potato? Why should government pay so many rupees to
provide 3 kgs of rice to a family? Why not spend on local agriculture project?
*************
Is government so rich? Are people paying tax in Nepal?
He remembered buying books for his NGO in Kathmandu. The bookstore was one of the most famous bookstores of KTM. He was buying books of Rs 10,000+ and
the cashier said," If you don't want receipt, it can be cheap by almost a thousand
rupees". Then he looked at his face, and grinned, and said, "tax can be avoided
that way."
Even those people avoid tax, huh.
***********
And then there was this guy in his village. A blacksmith. His house was burn in one
sad mishap. The local village panchayat wrote a recommendation letter for
him. "This gentleman lost his house in arseny. Please help him with whatever you
can."
He remembers the blacksmith raised money for more than ten years just by
showing that paper.
He then looks at the report of Prime Minister appealing for help from international
donors citing the Maoist emergency in country. Maoist problem to this government
has increasingly been something like the arseny of the house of the blacksmith. In
stead of raising tax efficiently, and making our statecraft efficient, our
government has got this new pretext to ask money from donors. May be it will
keep on asking for money with international community for years to come.
We need system, dudes, even in the moment of emergency.
************
New year 2002 is coming. Better we remember these poor peasants of Karnali, the
ignorant and weak government, the shrewd and unfortunate blacksmiths this time.
Hey, most of us are really lucky that we are reading this in the computer, probably
from a cozy room, without worrying what we are gonna eat this evening. We are
likely to have a better 2002 than these people and organizations.
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