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Rice farmers in Lumbini province saw their crop ruined by heavy downpour just as they were preparing for harvest last year. Over 130,000 hectares of rice fields were inundated, leaving hundreds of farmers high and dry. This year, too, rainfall has not stopped, even though it is well past the monsoon season. Changing weather patterns are affecting farmers as well as food production. Some food experts have already warned of low rice yield this year owing to climate change. Dr Sumitra Dhakal, climate change expert, says erratic weather is becoming common but no plans are in place to combat their impacts. “This is particularly true at the local level. Local governments and the general public are more or less ignorant about climate change and its effects,” she says. While provincial and local governments in Lumbini claim to have launched various climate campaigns, they seem to be largely formalities without any tangible outcomes. For instance, a budget of Rs 25 million has been allocated for a campaign that envisions one pond in every ward of every district in the province. But the majority of local governments have not implemented the campaign’s goal. Rather, they are stripping down forests and burying natural ponds and streams to open roadways. Finance and Cooperatives Minister Krishna Dhwoj Khadka does not agree this is the case. He says campaigns like ‘One Ward, One Pond’ and ‘One House, Two Trees’ will promote greenery in Lumbini province. “These campaigns will create more green spaces and help in water management,” says Khadka. “But it is important for local governments to cooperate to execute the plans brought by the provincial government.” The cooperation that Minister Khadka seeks is not there. Climate and environment experts say pond construction and tree plantation alone will not solve the climate crisis. They emphasize the need for reorienting and rethinking development goals. For the running fiscal year alone, Lumbini province has allocated a budget for nearly 2,000 road projects. Experts say when these projects get under way, their impacts on the environment are rarely taken into account. Forests are indiscriminately razed down and water bodies are either buried or their areas heavily encroached. Records show in the last five years, 12 local units in Gulmi district alone felled over 28,000 trees to open roadways. Environment activist Yubaraj Kandel says the situation in other hill districts in Lumbini province, such as Pyuthan, Arghakhanchi, Ropla and Palpa are no different. “Haphazard road construction has invited the problem of landslides in the hill districts and flooding in the plains,” says Kandel. “Water scarcity is becoming a major problem in many villages. People are deserting their homes, but the concerned government bodies are not taking any step to address the issue.” Narayan Dev Bhattarai, chief of Forest Management and Monitoring Department under Forest and Environment Ministry of Lumbini Province, says the problem of environment degradation is caused by a lack of coordination among the ministries involved in development projects. Climate experts have warned of unimaginable catastrophes if the government ministries and agencies continue to remain idle “To date, authorities concerned have no clear climate policy. They have no idea on how to mitigate or adapt to the changing climate,” says Dhakal. “They do not realize that time is running out.”

Until a decade ago, it used to take about an hour and a half to reach Lumbini from Butwal via Bhairahawa. Narrow and bumpy roads greeted visitors to Lumbini, called a tourist city.

Anyone returning to this region after a decade will be surprised by the changes in Butwal, Bhairahawa, and Lumbini. The first thing they will notice is that the road from Butwal to Belahiya and Buddhachowk to Lumbini has been widened.

The construction of the six-lane road has shortened the distance between Bhairahawa, Tilottama, and Butwal, where a megacity is being planned. Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Bishnu Poudel has already allocated a budget for the plan to develop the area into a megacity. Sainamana, Shuddhodhan, Siyari, and Omasatiya villages will also be connected to this city.

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Poudel, people's representative from, Rupendehi Constituency No 2, has been saying that Rupendehi will be made a model of development.

Butwal sub-metropolitan chief Shivaraj Subedi says the area east of Bardaghat west of Char Number will be incorporated into the megacity. The city will be extended to Saljandi Farsatikar and Amuwa.

However, experts say that officials need to maintain uniformity in the development of infrastructure. Yuvaraj Kandel, a scholar from Butwal, says that for the Butwal to become a megacity, there should be a uniformity in the infrastructure to be built in all the current municipalities.

"In particular, the budget needs to be allocated in such a way that infrastructure development is uniform and the metropolitan development authority is in control," he said. "If there is no uniformity in development, it will be difficult to develop a megacity."

Finance Minister Poudel has allocated a budget to lay underground power transmission cables in Butwal. This will help maintain the aesthetics of the city as overhead cabling has been seen as a bane for cities in Nepal.

Butwal sub-metropolis plans to develop the area as a green city. A tree plantation program has been launched to make road dividers green. There are plans to develop the Tinau-Danau corridor as a green corridor. At the same time, plans are being formulated to develop the Belbas-Bethari road in a similar fashion.

Traffic lights have been installed in Tilottama to make the city modern and safe. Tilottama’s Mayor Vasudev Ghimire says, "Work has been started from Manigram in the first phase of the road safety program."

Traffic lights will also be installed in Butwal and Bhairahawa. In Butwal, a modern model auto and transport village to manage freight vehicles and prevent unnecessary crowding of the city.

Sanamina municipality has started the construction of a modern landfill site in cooperation with neighboring municipalities. "Sanamina's landfill site plays an important role in waste management," said Mayor Chitra Bahadur Karki. "Even the waste of neighboring municipalities will be managed here."

There are plans to run electric buses to connect Butwal to Bhairahawa and Lumbini. There are plans to run electric buses in Lumbini as well. However, it’s yet to come into operation.

The International Conference Center being constructed in Butwal, and Bhairahawa Airport will make Butwal and Bhairahawa more cosmopolitan.

Drinking water for the densely populated city of the future is also being planned. The Jhumsa Khola Drinking Water Project will bring in more than 30 million liters of water to Butwal daily. Siddhababa's tunnel route and Kaligandaki-Tinau diversion will also make the city more attractive. 

Until seven years ago, it took almost an hour to get from one end of the 21-km Butwal-Bhairahawa road to another in a vehicle. The narrow, rough road tormented vehicles and passersby with dust. Now, the same road has been turned into a six-lane highway and the distance between Butwal and Bhairahawa can be covered in a maximum of 20 minutes.

This road, now named Butwal-Behaliya Trade Road, has reduced the travel time between Butwal and the Indian border to 30 minutes. Locals as well as travelers are amazed at the progress. The federal Minister for Culture and Civil Aviation Bhanubhakta Dhakal, who recently visited Butwal via Bhairahawa, could not hide his surprise as well. “So much has changed,” he said on the visit. “Looking at this road, we can say the country is developing.”

Like the Butwal-Belahiya Trade Road, the Bhairahawa-Lumbini road has changed its face too. Tourists coming to Lumbini used to be disappointed with the old cars, ramshackle trucks and rough roads in the area. No more. The road from Bhairahawa to Tilaurakot via Lumbini has been widened to four lanes. “Once these roads are completed, the face of local tourism will be transformed,” says Leela Giri, Lumbini’s Industry, Tourism, Forest and Environment Minister.

Around Rs 100 billion is being spent on infrastructure, including roads, in Rupandehi district. The construction of Bhairahawa's Gautam Buddha Airport as well as projects under the Lumbini Development Fund’s masterplan including 5,000-capacity meeting hall, Butwal-Belahiya Road, Lumbini-Bhairahawa Road, Belwas-Bethari Road are in the final stages of completion. The International Conference Center in Butwal is the largest in the country, with more than half the work in the Rs 1.2 billion project now complete. A permanent exhibition venue is also being built with the meeting hall.

The construction work of Buddha Circuit has also been completed to make Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha, accessible by road from all sides. Now visitors coming from the western side will reach Lumbini via Tilaurakot and Ramapur. From the east, an upgraded road also leads to Lumbini through a postal road. Agricultural produce can now be brought to markets easily. Farmers can reach markets of Butwal and Bhairahawa even on bicycles, carrying their agricultural produces. “Paved roads have greatly eased our lives,” says Ram Naresh Kurmi of Suryapura Chowk.

Butwal is a riverside city and its development as a river civilization has already started. After becoming finance minister for the second time, Bishnu Poudel had laid the foundation stone of the Tinau-Danav Corridor.

The roads to be constructed on either side of Tinau and Danav rivers will be connected to the Bhairahawa-Lumbini road. The long-term goal is to extend it to the Indian border. This six-lane road will link connecting roads in rural areas of Rupandehi and enhance the beauty of the Tinau River. Plans to build an arch bridge over the river are also being discussed. There is yet another plan to build a dam to create a reservoir for boating.

When we think of a uni­versity, we imagine large infrastructures, numerous students, libraries, and research centers. But the prestigious Lumbini Buddhist University (LBU) was con­fined for a decade to a room in Kathmandu. Although the relevant law states that the central secretariat of the uni­versity would be in Lumbini, it was in Kathmandu until five years ago.

The tendency to appoint retired professors from the Tribhuvan University or other institutions restricted the growth of the LBU, just like it did with other universities, particularly those outside Kathmandu. The LBU made significant strides once local officials were appointed. After the appointment of Tilak Ram Acharya as the Registrar, uni­versity officials visited LBU for the first time. Because of their tendency to stay in Kathmandu, the university had long been unable to run classes. Professor Naresh Man Bajracharya, former Vice-Chancellor of LBU, had only spent only two months in a year in Lumbini.

The LBU, established in Jan­uary 2005 following a summit on Buddhism, is considered an educational institute with distinctive features. It cur­rently has about 1,000 stu­dents, and offers courses in Buddhist philosophy, art, reli­gion, culture, and archeology. It started with a PhD program, but has been offering a mas­ter’s degree for around half a decade. It has now also added a bachelor’s program and a year-long intermediate degree language training program. An affiliate college in Butwal offers bachelor’s degrees in Travel and Tourism and Law (BALLB). Seven colleges in Kathmandu are also affiliated to the LBU.

“Now that we have been building infrastructures and running classes in Lumbini, the university is gradually expanding its horizons,” says Registrar Acharya. But LBU is still short of infrastructures. Officials say lack of support from the government, which has provided only limited funds, has been an obstacle to building other Buddhism-re­lated infrastructures.

But the LBU has deployed its own resources to build hos­tels for students and quarters for officials and teachers. A research center (Rs 200 mil­lion) and a library (Rs 110 mil­lion) are also coming up.

Many universities teach Buddhist philosophy across the world. But for students of Buddhism, Lumbini holds a special place—which is why the LBU has the potential to be an education-tourism hub. But Registrar Acharya says more infrastructures are needed to realize the potential. As sev­eral archeological sites on the Buddhist circuit are yet to be studied, Acharya says the LBU will produce scholars able to do such research.

Devdaha in the district of Rupandehi is considered the home of Buddha’s mother. “We are in the process of acquiring land there and constructing infrastructures. Work will commence as soon as the council of ministers approves the acquisition,” says Acharya. The university also has plans to expand to Tilaurakot in Kapilvastu and Ramgram in Nawalparasi.

Most tourists to Lumbini pay a visit to the university, which has been drawing increasing attention since the construc­tion, at a cost of Rs 70 million, of a stupa on its premises. The stupa is special because it con­tains Buddha’s remains, which was transferred there with the help of Burmese monks.

Millions have been squandered from the Prime Minister Employment Program due to poor planning and improper implementation. Many local units of Province 5 have spent an inordinate amount of money in just clearing weeds. About Rs 500 million has been spent on various programs that have no clear long-term impact. Program officials blame hasty planning.

Rs 7 million has been spent just in weeding gardens and cleaning roads in Tilottama municipality in the district of Rupandehi. Earlier too, a cleaning program with a budget of Rs 5 million was organized in the
municipality. “Even after the program was completed, we had to employ people for cleaning and clearing weeds in order to spend the allocated budget,” says Devendra Gyawali, a municipal officer. The majority of the 236 people employed in Tilottama municipality were women, who cleared weeds in Butwal’s
Belhiya road.

The PM employment program has a provision that allows the hiring of laborers in various municipal programs. However, Tilottama municipality has wasted a lot of money in seemingly pointless work. According to Madhav Giri, the coordinator of the employment program in the municipality, Rs 4.4 million has been spent on wages alone. Rs 5.5 million was spent by the municipality on cleaning the city, planting trees and clearing up a field. Laying drains, maintaining health posts and constructing hospital roads are the only tasks the municipality has invested in that have meaningful long-term impact.

Gaumukhi rural municipality in the district of Pyuthan has also spent Rs 3.6 million on gratuitous activities. As many as 600 people were employed and Rs 3.6 million spent by this rural municipality in just nine days to exhaust the allocated budget. In nine local units in Pyuthan, more than 2,500 people—of whom 70 percent are women—have been employed.

Meanwhile, some municipalities in Rupandehi have still not shown an interest in implementing the PM employment program. Chief administrative officer Khyam Bahadur Thapa of Siddharthanagar municipality says, “Most of the municipality’s structures are concrete. Here the only work that needs to be focused on are cleaning and afforestation. Clearing weeds, just for the purpose of employing people and spending the budget, cannot be justified,” he says.

Many have criticized the PM employment program, arguing that billions of rupees are being spent for cheap popularity. Central member of the Nepal Bar Association Shiv Raj Pandit says that the criteria for selecting an unemployed person for a job is flawed. “There isn’t much difference between giving away money to someone and employing them for clearing weeds,” he says. He adds that the lives of the unemployed won’t improve unless the PM employment program is linked to productive activities. “The program is good, but because the implementation was not effective, it has been unable to bring about positive changes. We need to do better in the upcoming fiscal,” he says.

Butwal : Krishna Bhusal’s house in Padampur is about 300 meters away from an electricity transmission line. Although the house is in a sub-metropolis, it didn’t have electricity connection until recently. Bhusal knocked on the doors of the electricity and municipal offices repeatedly, but to no avail. After the local level elections in 2017, Bhusal wrote directly to ward chairman Dadhiram Neupane. The next month, five electric poles were erected close to his house. Now it’s easy for Bhusal to get electricity, telephone and internet connections.

Not just Bhusal, citizens in general can access public services easily, now that the constitution has devolved much authority to the ward offices, each one of which has five elected representative. “With ward chairs, we can make our case strongly. As our local representatives, they are compelled to fulfill our fair demands. I feel that the government is right next doors,” says Bhusal.

Now the ward office allocates budget for local development activities, including road construction. As a result, many outlying streets have been graveled. And drinking water services have been expanded. Before the local elections, something as simple as constructing a culvert would require one to lobby the district or even central offices. Such hassles are now a thing of the past.

Manikar Karki, a political analyst, says that having a government entity that responds to your queries and complaints in your immediate vicinity is the true spirit of federalism. “People now feel the presence of the government.”

Decentralization of public services has enabled provincial and local governments to spend a big portion of the national budget at their discretion. Services like education, health, agriculture and some infrastructure construction are now within the jurisdiction of the ward offices. Karki thinks that the local level government has been effectively delivering such services.

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