The urgency of the energy emergency

Editorial
The urgency of the energy emergency

FROM ISSUE #566 (12 AUG 2011 - 18 AUG 2011) | TABLE OF CONTENTS

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BIKRAM RAI

In the transition from war to peace, from revolution to mainstream politics, our politicians seem to have forgotten that power no long comes out of the barrel of a gun. It comes out of the turbine at the end of a penstock pipe.

As the Jhalanath Khanal government prepares to step down as agreed in the five-point agreement, the best outcome now would be that his government will be replaced by a consensus cabinet of all main parties. This would offer a better chance to overcome the political hurdles that have deadlocked the peace process and governance for so long. We cannot afford another cliff-hanger at midnight on 31 August. The people need reason to hope that things will be different this time, and that can only come about if they see the parties seriously working together.

The Khanal government has come under a lot of criticism for sins of omission, and there are so many on our list that we've lost count. Many "sins of commission" were also committed with arbitrary, irrelevant decisions that wasted money and time. If it is true that the Maoist tourism minister unilaterally sanctioned the dangerously daft proposal to turn Lumbini into a Buddhist themepark, it needs to be investigated. The Finance Minister announced a distributive budget that pandered to patronage politics, was incoherent and could not prioritise.

But, it has to be said, there are bright spots. One of them is Energy Minister Gokarna Bista and the no nonsense style with which he has gone about tackling the country's crippling energy crisis. Bista represents a new breed of Nepali politicians who are motivated, professional, take advice from experts, prioritise and get down to work. (Pictured is Bista shutting off power this week to a government department that didn't pay its bills.) He is a do-er who wants results. And unlike party seniors who are always out to undercut rivals, Bista works across party lines with similarly committed young leaders within the NC and Maoists.

In this issue, we make a realistic assessment of the country's power crisis and come to the conclusion that winter power cuts will be debilitating for at least the next three years (p14-15). The reason is that successive governments after 2006 did not give the energy emergency the urgency it needed, or they played politics with it.

Bista is working from the recommendations of a preliminary White Paper issued by the Parliament Committee on Natural Resources of which the NC's Gagan Thapa is a member. For a document prepared by politicians, this is surprisingly cogent and solution-oriented. It points to a four-fold path to energy security including:

� Political consensus on future strategy
� Generate enough power to meet domestic demand for value-added industry and only then export
� Immediately commission a reservoir project in each development zone
� Unbundle transmission and distribution, address inefficiencies, corruption, pilferage in the NEA

Politicians and CA members get a lot of bad rap these days for not doing enough to get the peace process moving. But there are young turks in all political parties who are equally frustrated with this paralysing inertia, and should not be tarred with the same brush. They understand performance legitimacy and know that their constituents will judge them by their deeds, not words.

Nepal has a very dark future unless we, among other things, tackle the energy crisis. Which is why we must applaud politicians like Bista and Thapa, may their tribe increase.

Read also:
"Things will change"
Keep power politics out of power policy, SAROJ DAHAL
Power cuts here to stay into the 2020s unless corruption and politicisation are checked
Electric future, GAGAN THAPA
An end to power cuts is not just desirable, it is possible

See also:
Avoid a void, EDITORIAL

1. who cares
about that Lumbini into a Buddhist themepark;

according to my senses,

positive possibility:

there is one, those capitalists involved with the NGO, they could be looking to create their personal goodwill by developing, promoting Lumbini.

i do not think they want to help lumbini for the sake of the religion, humanitarian or other good reasons cause if that has been the case they would not have associated the NGO with a killer of 16k and another serial killer.

negative or should i say dangerous possibilities (there are many):

1: the least, there could be financial reason. using this ngo they could loot donors, they could control nepal's economy by buying shahs and maoist. that could be the reason why they have brought in the killer of 16k and the serial killer.

maoist illegally gave frequency to some chinese, i wonder if that chinese firm is associated with this ngo. and its well known that all major chinese firms are agents of chinese commie party.

2: it is not easy to carry/transport/send 50 crore, for money laundering purpose they could have established this ngo.

$3billion is like 210 billion rupees. and there are more than 2000 10crores in there. so tell me, how many bosses are there in NC, UML, Maoist, army, police, bureaucracy, civil soicety. buying 2000 individuals is enough for maoist coup and then keep nepal in their pocket to loot.

3: under the hide of the ngo, they could inter into nepal to mobilize maoist. why the shah as the member? to counter india, cause NC, UML do not have fire power so only hope for india and the west is shah and since with shah in there pocket, there will be no threat of retaliation.

4: this could be a grand design, to control nepal and get into south asia. that is why they choose puspa, who is the most opportunist, selfish politician in the history of nepal who can be easily bought and who has tens of thousands of peasants waiting for his order to attack nepalese.

but i am not worried cause, they are not the only players on the earth and they are chinese, it is not possible for commies and dictators to have genius strategist, think tank in their arsenal.

and we know nepal, nepalese. nepalese are those ungrateful individuals who accept others help but do not pay back what they owe.

if that ngo does other than what they have been saying, it will back fire on them.

Posted on: 12 AUG 2011 | 4:42 PM NST

2. who cares
on the one hand maoist, puspa have been cursing industrialist, businessman, investors, private sector in nepal but on the other hand they have sold themselves to foreign evil capitalists.

they visit those capitalists whenever there is a need to make hard decision in nepal. why does puspa go to singapore, malaysia- to take order or to get cash to buy politicians.

before returning from malaysia, puspa had been calling jhallu ram to resin weather there is a progress in peace process or not, but after the arrival, he has begun to ordering jhallu ram not to resign.

so, could chinese have taken responsibility to think, make strategies for maoist. ... i welcome the challenge, since maoist were no match. .. will bejing hang them if they fail. commies have a habit of hanging failures.

puspa, maoist are the biggest foreign agent, agent of evil capitalist. and they are the ones who bark nationalism loudly, call others agent. and still there are around a million who follow them.

Posted on: 12 AUG 2011 | 4:55 PM NST