Why mum?
The increasing number of vehicles on urban streets is indicative of aspirations for commuting ease. The reality is strikingly different and needs no elaboration. The best the vehicle can do is crawl, even during off-peak hours. This is true in most urban areas of the developing world and it is much too worse here as Kathmandu roads were neither built for nor designed with vehicular traffic in mind. Longitudinal road extensions continue, nonstop, bringing even larger areas of the rural fringe in the grips of the urban octopus. The pristine image of the Valley and its medieval towns now remain only on the pages of colourful tourist brochures as the surroundings continue to be gobbled up.
In town-planning jargon it is called the urban sprawl—which manifests as an organic growth sans any order or priority. The only thing that is assured is chaos. The local bodies, which are neither sufficiently strong nor effective, to begin with, are seen putting nothing better than feeble effort in trying to manage crises on a daily basis. People are at a loss about the bodies’ designated responsibilities. What do they do besides collecting taxes? At most, local level constructions or repair works are generally seen to be too little an attempt, compared to the problem, and inferior at best.
The lack of elected local bodies has made the already bad situation even worse. Our local authorities are fortunate as they do not shoulder city centred infrastructure works like roads, water and electricity as their main responsibilities. Elsewhere, the most basic of local bodies work include managing and proper disposal of sewage. Our city sewage is disposed of “raw” into prominent rivers and streams. The oxidation ponds, which happen to be the simplest of the treatment processes, relying on natural action of the sun and air to break up the sewage, built at different locations in the valley lay barren and deserted. We are all too familiar about the effectiveness of the solid waste disposal works. Most of these are dumped on to sewage-laden rivers and streams from bridge decks!
There is a very touching incident associated with the child of a Japanese friend who was on a visit here that comes to mind. The child had seen something that perplexed him while site-seeing. But he did not have the courage to ask his mother about it then and there. He waited until they were back in the hotel. The mother later related the incident, after much coaxing, in a very roundabout Japanese manner, but in turn blushing red with embarrassment. To her utter surprise the child seemed to have logically concluded that since animals do not have toilets they do their business where they want, but why do people in Katha-mandu do it in the open too? Naturally, the question left her speechless along with her Nepali host who had no answer either. That was some two decades ago. I wonder how many others, big and small visitors, have already observed the strange habit, and, for that matter, how many more will do so in the future about the strange habits of Kathmandu.
Posted on: 2012-02-05 10:03
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All of them discussed the issue. The result was the same...and we have committed to continue discussions on the issue till midnight.
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