Development without Government
While everyone in the country is accusing the
government for failing to do the required
job, FNCCI, the apex association of the
country’s private sector, has recently given a different message by signing an agreement with the Federation of District Development Committees (FDDC) to jointly develop a number of small hydropower projects across different districts.
If the FNCCI-FDDC plan works out as envisaged, it will increase the existing hydropower generation capacity of the country by about 150 MW. This is a welcome step for two reasons. First, it gives hope to the people who had to live through the last winter without power for as long as 18 hours a day. Second, if this initiative is successful, it will prove that the role of the government in infrastructure development, like power generation, can be reduced.
This plan of the FNCCI and FDDC is not too ambitious or impractical. The projects proposed under the plan are between one and five MW. The country has sufficient experience, human resource and capital to provide the technical, managerial and financial services required for such projects. If the government bureaucracy does not pose any hurdle in the implementation of these projects, they will be commissioned within three years. This fact makes this plan preferable over the government’s other plan to import electricity from India which requires about two years to complete the infrastructure required (transmission line). Therefore, the proposed plan deserves support also from the ultra-nationalists who usually come out protesting against any plan related to the development of Nepal’s hydropower with foreign investment.
The FNCCI-FDDC plan also deserves praise because the local people will get shares in these projects. As a result, they will gain tangible benefits from the respective power projects developed in their localities. Big power projects so far have failed to award such benefits to the local people. With this experiment, big projects will also be encouraged to offer stake to the local people and it will help to ensure local support to the development of power projects. As it is well-known that one of the major hurdles in the development of big power projects in Nepal is the opposition from the local people, this step will prove to be a significant development.
Equally important aspect of the plan is the revenue that the DDCs will generate from such projects. According to the proponents of the plan, the DDCs concerned will be able to generate surplus revenue which can be again invested in similar new projects. If this happens, it will set in motion an endogenous development process.
