Madhukar SJB Rana

Kathmandu:

The Fulbari is, indeed, “an ideal destination to appreciate natural beauty in the comfort of creativity”, so says its PR document. If necessity is the mother of invention this is the time for all stakeholders to be thoroughly creative and pragmatically innovative to get this beautiful infrastructure back to shape and running on a commercially viable and sustained manner towards garnering its full business potential for the benefit of Pokhara.

Columnist CK Lal has written recently that “Pokhara has survived the insurgency but who will save it from itself?” The quick answer is this: the Pokhrelis themselves. Of course, Pokhrelis must fight for devolution of political and economic responsibility to themselves. They must, and should, begin to see themselves as the economic and cultural hub of the Western Region and not as simply the hinterland of the Central Region, where everything is supposed to happen via the Kathmandu Valley. CK Lal has made many excellent suggestions; mainly concentrating on national tourists and across-the-border tourists from India through various innovations by the land and air transport sector in collaboration with hoteliers.

I suggest that a new policy of “resident tourists” with five-year multiple entry visas given to retirees from all over the world, who wish to live in Pokhara, would fill the empty hotels and create a real estate boom there. Opening the real estate sector of Pokhara, as a pilot case, to foreign direct investments may lend a most dramatic turnaround to the business climate in Nepal, as a whole, together with reviving the sick resorts and hotels of Pokhara. The tempo of urbanisation in Pokhara has picked up after the escalation in violence, insurgency and terrorism as the rural populace seek safety in urban centres. This tempo of urbanisation must be further speeded to set the foundation for Pokhara to emerge as a real economic hub for the Western Region of Nepal. They must begin to assert themselves politically as masters of their own destiny. We need not await a federal constitution for this mastery to take shape. It can happen right now as a major political innovation in the vortex of insurgency. I would like to also suggest that Pokhrelis get out a vote in the forthcoming elections in large numbers not only to send their representatives to Parliament in Kathmandu but also to demand local political and fiscal autonomy to design, promote and execute their own Master Plan for Regional Development.

(to be continued)

Madhukar SJB Rana is the finance minister of the Kingdom of Nepal. He is also a regular contributor to various national and international publications.