Changes do not come without cost. The changes in Kathmandu have caused a number of intended and unintended consequences that draw serious concern. Already, the city has become almost unbearably crowded; traffic congestion has been painfully rampant; urban planning has effectively collapsed; unpredictability in transportation and such other infrastructures as electricity, water, sewer, and communication has been a part of daily life; unruly behavior and lawlessness have been prevalent in the street, at offices, and in daily activities; and, in sum, the city life has become miserable. From the point of view of socioeconomic structure, the society has greatly polarized. My own research using data from the nationwide surveys has indicated that economic inequality soared during the mid-1990s and 2000s, elevating Nepal’s position as the most unequal country in South Asia. Although my observation for the post mid-2000s would be based mostly on anecdotal evidence, what is happening in Kathmandu now appears to be adequate to conclude that economic inequality has accelerated much further. As recently as around the 2000s, for example, the housing development in the city consisted of a fair share of relatively small, single family houses. The fact that this reversed into an almost complete dearth of small houses underscores that most of the house-owners have fared tremendously well, with an ability to construct relatively large, multi-family houses. One does not need to be Einstein to deduce from this that people are either unable to erect houses at all, or if they are then they are able to do so to their fullest possible size and form.

Economic inequality has increased worldwide: many advanced and most developing countries have been experiencing this trend during the past few decades. The modern international political economy has affected how countries, regions, and cities fare and how the economic structure is determined.

This changing context has created winners and losers across countries with the number of billionaires rising rapidly. Globalization has played a major role in this process as one of the root causes of inequality has been remittance incomes, and those with foreign remittance are able to improve their lot.

The fact that the differences between the multi-family house owners and other urban dwellers in Kathmandu are quite high has far reaching implications for the capability, opportunity, and freedom of this as well as future generations. Education, which in part determines one’s destiny in the modern era of information technology and service economy, has been highly polarized with those able to afford receiving world-class education at private elite institutions and those unable to do so being forced to attend public schools without any reasonable infrastructure to learn.

The potential causes as well as implications of increasing economic inequality also include massive corruption plaguing the entire economy and society.

The public sector in Nepal is notoriously quintessential for corruption with a plethora of inadequately compensated public sector employees and politicians making ridiculously large fortunes. Neither the so-called corruption watch-dog public agencies nor the civil society sector and the media typically thought of as informal reporters have been able to uncover major corruption cases and report them for public scrutiny.

No doubt, this public

sector corruption is ubiquitous across almost all government agencies, political parties, and many public enterprises such as the

airlines, oil, and investment corporations. But it has also permeated the private

sector as business people have demonstrated behaviors beyond what normal business ethics permit. No one denies that these business entities are centered

at making profit by nature but the means through which some of these have been able to make profit is beyond imagination. Cheating customers, exploiting employees, circumventing tax and other regulatory provisions, and currying

favor through bribery

are some of the most typical ways many businesses have attempted to maximize profit.

The implication has been an outright promotion of a corrupt culture in which people enter the public service expecting to make fortunes some day and businesses are expected to make profitovernight by manifesting illegal and unethical conduct, leaving a deleterious precedence for future generations.

Public policies are the conduits for governments to intervene in the socio-economic structure of a society. While policymakers ought to besensitive enough to avoid disincentives in the market for those who are entrepreneurial,they should also heed the fact that anyone ‘playing by the rules’ and making customary efforts do not fall behind.It has become urgent in Kathmandu and Nepal

in general to create and strictly enforce a legal and regulatory framework that is fair to all.

(Dr. Wagle teaches at the School of Public Affairs and Administration, Western Michigan University, USA)