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Much of the recent controversy over the proposed Nijgadh International Airport in Bara district could have been avoided. Successive governments pushed the ‘national pride project’ without a clear understanding of the trade-offs of building an airport smack-dab in the middle of a dense biodiversity-rich forest. Nor was there much of a plan on the resettlement of the villages that would be uprooted during its construction. As a part of a highly ambitious plan, 80 sq. km of land was cordoned off. It was three to four times the area covered by even the biggest airports in the world. Besides an international airport, the plan was also to build a smart city from the ground-up–with the whole enterprise expected to cost around an eye-watering $6.5bn.  

Most aviation experts reckon a fourth of the area being proposed is enough to build a world-class airport. This would not only dramatically lower project cost but also pose less of an environmental challenge. On the other hand, if the airport and surrounding structures were to sprawl over 80 sq. km, a whopping 2.4m trees would have to be felled. The idea of the smart city was also rather daft: there are plenty of nearby cities that can be easily upgraded to service the new airport. No wonder the Supreme Court had to intervene and ask the government to stop building the proposed airport that didn’t seem to be making any rhyme or reason.  

But there is also no alternative to Nijgadh. After a decade and half, the three airports purpose-built for international air-traffic–TIA, Pokhara and Bhairahawa–between them won’t be able to handle half the volume of expected air-traffic. Of all the proposed sites for an alternative international airport, Nijgadh is also the only place where international flights will be able to start their descent in Nepali airspace–a huge consideration given India’s reluctance to allow third-country carriers in its airspace.       

As many aviation experts have pointed out, a top-notch international airport can be built at Nijgadh for around $3bn, and with minimal environmental damage and disturbance to the lives and livelihoods of those living in the vicinity. Time then to go back to the drawing board.  

The Tara Air Twin Otter crash near Jomsom that killed 22 people on board is a grim reminder of the challenges of flying over Nepal’s uneven terrains and navigating its unpredictable weather. Following the crash, the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) has issued a new directive whereby planes can fly only if the weather of the entire route is clear. Earlier, only the state of the weather at the take-off and landing sites were factored in. This should make the Nepali skies safer in the otherwise accident-prone pre-monsoon and monsoon seasons. Yet that too will be no foolproof guarantee against accidents. 

Besides highlighting the dangers of navigating Nepal’s treacherous terrains, the tragic accident on May 30 has again put a spotlight on the country’s failure to properly monitor and regulate its civil aviation sector. Most aircraft accidents in Nepal are attributed to ‘pilot’s error’ and yet it is hard to think of a single tangible measure that has been taken to minimize such errors. In fact, there are reports of pilots being put under pressure to fly even in bad weather. Nepal is also yet to take one safety measure that could have the biggest impact on air-safety: separate the regulatory and service-providing arms of CAAN. The merging of these duties in one organization creates conflict of interest and increases the chances of grave accidents. 

Nepal has made an improvement in the international civil aviation regulator ICAO’s safety audit scores (but not in the investigation of air-crashes, a measure in which the country’s scores got worse). Yet due to its failure to split up CAAN, the country’s carriers are still banned from European skies. The ban in turn dissuades European travelers from visiting Nepal, a tourism dependent country. 

As the charred bodies of crew and passengers are still being identified, this is not the right time to apportion blame. Why the Twin Otter crashed will be known only after a thorough study. But this is certainly the right time to ask why we as a country are not doing more to minimize the frequency of such tragedies. 

Spread over 66 pages and 145 points, the policies and programs President Bidya Devi Bhandari presented before the federal parliament on May 24 was rather unwieldy. Rather than being a concise list of its priorities, governments over the years have tried to cram in as many points as they possibly could in this pre-budget document. What this does is undercut the credibility of the policies and programs, or what should be the state’s most important priority. It also makes people question the government’s competence.

Many of the promises are unrealistic too. As we have been reporting over the past few months, progress on the Kathmandu-Tarai fast-track project has been glacial. In over five years that the project has been handed over to Nepal Army, only 16.1 percent of work has been completed. Yet the new policies and programs commit to completing the whole thing by its new 2024 deadline. If achieved, this would be a mini-miracle. The new government document also says construction of the Nijgadh International Airport the fast-track will connect to will also get momentum—even as the debate over its desirability rages on.

There are some good points about the document as well. For instance, it vows to take steps to prevent land fragmentation. This is vital at a time even agricultural and forest lands are being ‘plotted’ for residential purposes, often by wrecking the surrounding environment. Full digitization of land administration, the provision of identity cards for poor families, the new emphasis on organic farming, fast tracking of truth and reconciliation, more support for local industries and goods—these are all appreciable initiatives.

But then this coalition government could be gone in as early as next six months following federal elections. Successive governments have traditionally been very reluctant to embrace the policies and programs of their predecessors, especially if they happen to be of a different political persuasion. The other area of doubt is lack of focus on helping the country tide over the current economic crisis. Coming at such a vital time, this document could have represented a welcome break with the past. Alas, it’s more of the same.

The tortoise-paced vote-counting following the May 13 local elections is a farce. With better preparation, the Election Commission could easily have arranged for more counting stations and personnel to tally votes in big cities like Kathmandu and Bharatpur. Surely the commission officials understand that prompt results are among the salient features of free and fair elections. The longer the results take, the greater the suspicions of foul play. And why keep counting votes for up to a month when you could literally do it in minutes? 

To its credit, the Election Commission has repeatedly tried to phase-in electronic voting. During the 2008 Constituent Assembly election, the commission had piloted electronic voting in some booths of Kathmandu constituency number 1. Both local and international poll observers had deemed the pilot a success and encouraged wider adoption of electronic voting. Yet Nepal to this day continues to exclusively rely on paper. The major political parties are apparently unconvinced that the machines cannot be tampered with. But experiences from around the world suggest paper voting is more amenable to tampering and fraud—by a magnitude—compared to electronic voting. If India, with its wretched history of electoral violence and rigging, now has no qualms about embracing technology to make its voting system quick and transparent, there is no reason Nepal should not adopt it too. 

Twenty or more days to count less than 200,000 votes (in Kathmandu, for instance) is way too much. The voters are being made to continuously check updates to see how their candidate of choice is faring—as if they have nothing better to do. Being so inconvenienced, they might be discouraged from voting next time. Perhaps it is too late to adopt a full-fledged electronic voting for upcoming provincial and federal elections. But as the commission has clarified, there is still room to employ electronic voting in these elections, at least in places with relatively high voter education. We could not do it soon enough. Increasingly adept at using apps and appliances, Nepalis, with a bit of education, are more than capable of exercising their franchise electronically.