Going as usual will not help solve the country's problems. India and China have shown how incredible achievements can be made by taking off-beat decisions
The report of the High-level Economic Reform Commission, also dubbed as the road map of the economy, has been the talk of the town after it was submitted to Finance Minister Bishnu Paudel by the commission Chairman, Rameshwore Khanal, a former secretary of the Nepal government, and its members. It has been looked upon as a possible saviour at a time when the economy of the country is drowned neck deep and barely floating in the financial troubled waters.
Nepal, however, does not need to give up hope as the economies of neighbouring countries, India and China, have reached dizzy heights after hitting rock bottom. The economy of India was so weak in the nineties when Chandra Shekhar was the prime minister and later under P V Narasimha Rao that it had foreign reserves barely enough to meet imports for two weeks. Thanks to remittance, Nepal has enough foreign reserve to meet import demands of more than a year. But Shekhar had a financial wizard in his economic advisor Dr. Man Mohan Singh, who prepared a series of liberalisation proposals, although they could not be implemented after Shekhar had to resign.
But India did not achieve this economic feat just like that. Prime Minister Narasimha Rao showed incredible courage in making a non-political person, Singh, his financial minister. The liberal Singh had to face opposition in conservative India, but the prime minister backed him by removing the obstacles.
This is not a solitary example. The other is that of China whose economy had taken a nosedive in the mid-seventies. With the arrival of Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese economy saw a dramatic revival after years of political turmoil. He introduced four modernisation drives in the economy, agriculture, defense, and science and technology, which lifted the Chinese economy to what it is today. This is also known as cat theory following his famous maxim that the colour of the cat does not matter so long as it catches mice. Today, China has developed so fast that it can now lock horns with the United States, the financial emperor of the World.
Will Khanal be able to emulate Singh of India and Deng of China? He should be, given the voluminous work his team has produced in just six months. The commission was given the Terms of Reference virtually touching everything under the sun. The commission has given a fitting reply by addressing all of them. And for this, interactions have been carried out not only with the national experts but also the diaspora community around the globe. The experiences of other countries as well as of our own have also been referred to during this mammoth endeavour.
Several periodic plans have been published in the past. But barely have they been implemented by the government. Like the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, the annual plans and programmes of the country hardly follow what is proposed in the periodic plans. The same may be the fate of this report. Instead of changing the face of the country, it may end up gathering dust in the cupboard as has been the fate of several of its predecessors.
That this report has fathomed greater depth can be clear by making a comparison with other similar reports – for example, the Five-Year National Plans. As addressing all the sectors is not possible, a few like urban development can be given a fleeting glance. For example, with respect to Urban Development, the 16th Plan document begins with the customary introduction, present situation, issues like sustainability, security and disaster resilience, and transformational strategy like a sustainable, safe and disaster-resilient city. It finally boils down to quantitative goals consisting of subjects like the length of the roads to be constructed.
But this report has delved deeply by addressing a host of physical, social and cultural issues duly reviewing the aforementioned 16th Plan programmes. These consist of issues like land pooling, house pooling, land fragmentation, dense settlement development, checking the uncontrolled cost variation of the housing plots, housing for middle, lower and houseless people, and attracting foreign investment in housing. Furthermore, there are others such as relief for disaster-affected families, providing cheap rental housing, amendment in the Building Act, conserving the traditional architecture, refining the planning bylaws, timely reform of the Shelter Policy and restructuring of the City Development Fund.
It is not to say that the report has made a breakthrough like rocket science, but it has certainly brought the issues in one place, which were otherwise scattered in innumerable documents. It has made far-reaching recommendations, one of which is the closing of the white elephant institutions. But the report has to be revisited again as there are some duplications as well, which are bound to be in such an all-embracing document.
But what about its implementation? Can K P Oli, Sher Bahadur Deuba, Prachanda or any other emulate Shekhar or Rao, then the Prime Ministers of India? Just as Singh was first made the advisor and later the finance minister, can the government appoint the coordinator as the powerful executive advisor to the Prime Minister and the members to the concerned ministers? Can they emulate Trump who put Elon Musk in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency? Unfortunately, Musk has taken rash decisions triggering demonstrations around the nation. But a seasoned bureaucrat like Khanal will not commit such mistakes.
Going as usual will not help solve the country's problems. India and China have shown how incredible achievements can be made by taking off-beat decisions. Nepal must learn from the successful adventures of its neighbours in order to come out of the present economic impasse.
