| Utilities Mess
Urban life is getting messier day by day with the increasing number of potholes on the road, piped drinking water getting more polluted and scarce, electricity becoming even more expensive due to pilferage, and the drainage system unbearably defunct. The solutions being tried to mitigate these problems are getting even messier.
In the case of some public utilities like drinking water, the government authorities seem to be guided by extreme free-market fundamentalism and are preparing to hand them over to the private sector. In other cases, such as the drainage system, the municipal authority is making use of user groups. In yet another case – e.g. electricity distribution – the solution being tried is wholesaling it to different types of agencies, ranging from the municipality authority to user’s groups and even cooperatives. In case of roads, some stretches are considered the responsibility of the municipal authority and the rest is considered the responsibility of the Department of Roads of the Central government.
One can easily see that all these piecemeal approaches are not going to address the problems in an effective way. These solutions have no built-in mechanism to ensure coordination among the different suppliers of these utilities. There is no guarantee that the suppliers of drinking water, telephone or electricity would not start digging the road the very next day of it being blacktopped by the road department. Almost every year the authorities hold meetings and take decisions to better coordinate among themselves so as to minimise such problems. But these decisions are never implemented.
Looking at the practices prevailing elsewhere in the world, the best available solution would be to bundle all these utilities into a single agency and grant it a complete authority over such matters. The most suitable agency would be the municipal authority in urban area and the village development committee (VDC) in rural area. As these agencies are governed by the people’s representatives elected through a legally specified process, they will be in a much better position to manage the supply of these utilities and in controlling the leakages in them. As a wholesaler of these utilities, they can negotiate better prices from those who generate and supply such utilities.
Though there is a terrible lack of competent human resource in these local authorities to manage such utilities, this cannot be accepted as enough reason to deny them the job that is naturally their responsibility. In fact, lack of resource (human as well as material) is a problem also with the central government agencies. Despite that these agencies are entrusted all the jobs while the human and material resources are being gradually improved in them. Similar capability enhancement efforts can be made also in case of the local agencies.
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