KATHMANDU, JUNE 26

It is said that Draupadi of Mahabharata fame was a widow for five consecutive earlier lives. She meditated, and God ordered her to ask for a blessing. She said patim dehi, patim dehi, patim dehi, patim, which when translated in English means "give me a husband, give me a husband, give me a husband, husband, husband".

As she had made a request five times, it is said that she happened to be the spouse of the five Pandavas in the following life.

Similarly, if God were to ask to a personified Nepal, it would probably say give me development, give me development, give me development, development, development. As if this proverb was true, Nepal has been pursuing development through its Five Year Plans.

The history of planned development goes back to the year 1956when the First Five Year Plan was formulated with emphasis on transport in view of the inaccessibility rife in the country. With the formation of the government by the Nepali Congress following a landslide victory in the general election of 1958, its charismatic leader B P Koirala initiated the Second Five Year Plan, when he instructed the planners to fix a photograph of an impoverished Nepali wearing a torn cap on the wall of the Planning Commission Building and plan accordingly.

Nepal has been through 15 plans of varying time periods, mostly of five years' duration, and is in the course of drafting a concept paper for the forthcoming 16th Five Year Plan.

In this context, experts were invited to provide their suggestions at a programme chaired by Member of the National Planning Commission (NPC) Prabhu Budhathoki at the Soaltee Hotel regarding the transformation and destination of the infrastructure and environment in the 16thPlan. What should be the practical goals for this purpose and what should be the dos and don'ts for the aforementioned metamorphosis were a few of the queries.

Before making headway, it is necessary to make a review of the planned development efforts made over 50 years now. In an eye opening paper published by Mohan B Dangi et al entitled "Quest for development: An examination of more than a half-century of national planning and foreign aid practice in Nepal", several realities surrounding planned development have been highlighted.

Firstly, national plans regularly recognise failures, underachievement and low capacity.

Secondly, the country continues to be very dependent on foreign aid.

Thirdly, generally, there has been a lack of capacity and accountability in foreign aid. Fourthly, agriculture employs a high percentage of people. Finally, without authority to implement the plans, the NPC is perceived as a weak organisation.

One of the recommendations proposing the use of Masters students for implementing projects based on rigorous research and evidence is very illuminating indeed.

Transformation has been debated since the time of Aristotle. He said that transformation occurs in an uneducated person becoming educated. Transformation could be achieved if judiciously moved ahead.

It has been observed over the years that the development of Nepal is moving virtually at a snail's pace.

The allocation of the development budget three times lesser than the regular expenditure and the failure to spend even this lowly allocated budget are the pointer to this direction. The miniscule development that is achieved every year is engulfed by annual disasters like landslides, floods and wildfires. Moreover, a moderate earthquake every 50 years and a mega one, the kind of which was experienced in 2015, makes a delicious meat of whatever little development the country accomplishes.

The proofs are not far to seek. This year, the country experienced extreme heat due to the late arrival of the monsoon. And when it arrived, it brought within its fold landslides and floods due to the cloud burst that occurred in the eastern districts of Taplejung and Panchthar, leading to 100 millimeters of rain overnight.

The swollen Hewa and Piluwa River damaged hydropower plants expected to generate 150 megawatts.

And this is not something new in view of the havoc created by the floods in Melamchi, and this very area had received a similar quantum of rain just a decade back.

The disasters have resulted in the underachievement of national growth.

The national growth plummeted well below zero percent in 1980 because of a nationwide drought. It again touched almost rock bottom when the country was thumped by a mega earthquake in 2015. An earthquake has been ringing alarm bells in the west with Bajura shaking every week. This area has been observing a hushed silence after the earthquake of the year 1505 when King Ratna Malla was ruling then Kantipur.

Seismologists have been parroting that the earthquake has built to a high of 8.7 on the Richter scale, the occurrence of which will not only lead to widespread devastation in western Nepal but will spill over to India with 80 per cent of the buildings likely to go off in Delhi, including the Taj Mahal. If this is the scene in western Nepal, the eastern portion could be shaken any time in view of substantial energy still in store as the 7.6 magnitude 2015 earthquake could not flush it all out.

An infrastructure that can brave any kind of disaster be it an earthquake, flood or landslide should be executed in the 16th Plan period. The present infrastructures are like Narayan Gopal's song maile jati paila hide sabai metdai aye, meaning I erased whatever steps I walked as most of them are destroyed by the disasters as soon as they are constructed.

The Licchavi period attained the status of the golden era because of the government's investment on the maintenance of the existing infrastructure more than constructing anew as mentioned in the inscriptions. Transformation can only be achieved upon the creation of disaster-resilient infrastructure rather than ones vulnerable to disasters.