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During monsoon, intense incessant rain wipes out entire villages and settlements in different parts of Nepal. Hundreds go missing and many lose their lives. Local authorities and various organizations spring into action, rescuing people and offering food supplies and medicines. For months, floods and landslides are everyone’s concern. The rain stops. The issue wanes. The vicious cycle repeats itself year after year.

This year, as per reports, at least 18 people, including four women and three children, have been killed due to landslides and floods triggered by heavy rain across the country as of this writing. Another 21 have gone missing. The Tatopani border point in Sindhupalchowk has been closed after floods from the Bhotekoshi river damaged roads leading to it. A dam in Kachanpur has been washed away by a flooded Mahakali river. And it’s only just the beginning of monsoon.

Nepal, due to its geography, is a disaster-prone country. Add to that rampant deforestation, river-bank encroachment and climate change, which have collectively led to recurrent floods and landslides over the years. The repercussions are made worse by a negligent system that has never prioritized water-induced disaster prevention. Experts believe drastic steps should be taken immediately.

Prof. Bishal Nath Upreti, geologist and president, Nepal Center for Disaster Management, believes the government needs to take some concrete steps to lessen the threat of regular floods and landslides. Unfortunately, he says, it has been all talk and no action on disaster preparedness.

The first and foremost way to tackle water-induced disasters, he explains, is through accurate weather forecasting. Weather radar is vital to monitor the atmosphere and provide weather forecasts and issue warnings to the public. Nepal has one radar station when it needs at least three or four such stations throughout the country. Upreti says repeated pleas to add more stations have always fallen on deaf ears. The reason is always the same: budget constraints.

“Our government buys fancy cars every five years or so but doesn’t have money to spend on something that could potentially save thousands of lives. This sad reality is proof of an apathetic system,” says Upreti. 

Not all’s lost

To give credit where it’s due, Upreti adds the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM) under the Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation, is currently doing a much better job than it has since its establishment in 1962. But they are still hamstrung by lack of equipment and investment.

Hydrologist at the department, Bikram Shrestha Zoowa, agrees but says though there have been many improvements over the years much still remains to be done. Zoowa adds there is a need for more investment as well as capacity building to ensure water-induced disasters don’t leave a carnage in their wake.

According to Zoowa, those who work on the field are sensitive to the issue of floods and landslides and see the need to give it utmost priority. But at the decision-making level, there simply isn’t that awareness or a sense of urgency. In this case, he adds, local government authorities could look into the matter. The department could help with the required manpower and capacity building but the plan of action would be better off initiated and implemented at local level.

The Melamchi Bazar in Sindhupalchowk is submerged after heavy rainfall and flooding in mid-June, just after the start of the monsoon season in the country | Dipen Shrestha

Upreti holds similar views. Every community, he says, should have many weather stations to measure temperature, wind, and rainfall and develop local early warning systems. So far Nepal has been measuring overall rainfall but there is also the need to identify flood/landslide prone areas and focus on collecting specific data for accurate prediction. With proper rainfall measurements in catchment areas and constant monitoring of river flow, settlements downstream will have ample time to move to higher grounds. It’s the failure to do so that has been taking away people’s lives and livelihoods.

Weather forecast, he says, could be compared to a blood test. Just as a blood test tells you much about the state of your body, weather forecast is the vital information that indicates and predicts a country’s condition. But Nepal hasn’t paid much attention to it, which is evident by the number and scale of disasters that happen every monsoon. Weather and hence natural calamities could be predicted very accurately if long-term data were to be available.

Time for action

According to Samir Shrestha, meteorologist at Meteorological Forecasting Division under the DHM, there are chances of heavy rainfall in upcoming weeks, though their frequency and intensity could decrease. However, there is still a high risk of floods and landslides because river levels will continue to rise and the soil is already saturated, meaning it can’t hold more water. Based on predictions, the division will continue to issue alerts 24 to 48 hours prior to the possibility of a natural calamity but, Shrestha says, warnings are futile when proper measures aren’t in place.

“There is a need for policy-level changes because every monsoon brings floods and landslides and, with them, destruction of property and loss of lives,” he says.

Upreti adds that climate change will only exacerbate the problem in the future. There will be more rainfall, it will inevitably be more intense and that will result in more floods and landslides. Not to forget, the massive earthquakes of 2015 have left fissures in and thus weakened many hills.

Cloudbursts that are quite common along the Himalaya, especially the Mahabharat range, also worry Upreti. In such cases, there is an excessive amount of precipitation in a short period of time that is capable of causing floods and landslides even if rivers are flowing their natural course and there is enough drainage. Cloudbursts are apparently quite frequent these days mainly due to climate change.

“The last cloudburst that caused massive destruction took place in 1993. But cloudbursts aren’t rare and if they happen when the ground is already saturated like it is now, then there will be massive damage,” says Upreti.

Another problem lies in the way Nepal has always approached disasters. We wait till something happens and then shift all the focus on rescue and relief. Post disaster trauma and loss could be significantly minimized if disaster prevention and mitigation took precedence over post-disaster management. But that is rarely, if ever, the case.

Dilip Kumar Suwal, an official at Bhaktapur Municipality, says we have to learn from past mistakes and do whatever it takes to prevent disasters. The condition in Nepal is already precarious without human behavior and developmental programs worsening things for us.

The 2018 Hanumate flood was a result of drainage channels being blocked by boundary walls and river bank encroachment that obstructed water flow during the monsoon. Similarly, there’s haphazard road construction and sand extraction in the Chure that weaken hilly areas and make them landslide-prone. In Kathmandu valley, there is also the risk of urban flooding due to improper drainage systems and sewage channels opening into rivers.

“Natural reasons for flooding like rainfall can’t be helped but communities can ensure reckless human behavior doesn't aggravate the problem,” says Suwal. After the flooding of Hanumante River three years ago, the local authorities have been trying their best to ensure there is no narrowing of the waterway. They are also building proper embankments and removing debris and mud from the bottom of the river.

Upreti appreciates local level works but laments that such piecemeal measures won’t make much difference when the entire system is faulty. The communities’ efforts need to be supplemented with additional manpower and infrastructure at the national level. And the time to start working on it isn’t when the next monsoon rolls around. It’s now.   

No one knows the whereabouts of more than Rs 400 million raised in the name of flood victims of Khalanga, the Darchula district headquarters, which was flooded by the Mahakali eight years ago.

People from all over the country had raised money for the flood-victims in 2013. But with no proper audit, there has been no accounting of around Rs 400 million raised for the victims.

“Not a single penny fell into the hands of the victims,” says Raghubir Thagunna, secretary of the Mahakali Flood Victims Struggle Committee. “We were given Rs 35,000 as a relief. That was it. We don't know where the Rs 400 million raised in our name has gone.”

“Some of the money received from abroad was deposited into the Prime Minister's Relief Fund and some in the Central Disaster Relief Fund,” says Thagunna, whose two houses, a poultry farm, and land worth Rs 15 million were damaged by the devastating floods.

The Darchula district headquarters was flooded after India opened the sluices of the Dhauliganga Hydropower Project without any notice. After the Darchula floods, advance notice is sent to the Darchula District Administration Office when opening the gates of Dhauliganga. According to Ram Dutta Pant, clerk at Darchula District Administration Office (DAO), the Mahakali that year flooded the houses and land belonging to 113 people. Nearly Rs 1 billion worth of property was lost.

Thagunna alleged that the money raised by various political parties in the name of flood victims was spent on campaigning for elections. “We don't have data on who raised how much. The funds raised by the UML, the Congress, and the UCPN (Maoist), we suspect, may have been spent in the second Constituent Assembly election campaign. We did not get anything,” said Thagunna.

The struggle committee has been demanding compensation for the flood victims of Darchula. They have come to the capital many times by collecting donations. But the government is yet to heed their distress calls.

The DAO had prepared a booklet detailing the losses incurred by each victim. “The district administration has recorded the details of the damages caused by the Mahakali floods. We have not been compensated by the government, nor have we received the amount collected in our name,” complains Lalit Singh Bohora, another victim.

Bohora claims that more than Rs 500 million has been deposited to the Prime Minister's Relief Fund and the Central Disaster Relief Fund alone. “But we have been struggling for eight years to get that Rs 500 million. No one will give it to us,” Bohara said. “Even if we received that amount, it would be half of the compensation we deserve.”

In his budget speech for the fiscal year 2018/19, then finance minister Yubaraj Khatiwada had announced plans to provide a loan of up to Rs. 0.7 million to aspiring entrepreneurs by accepting their degree certificates as collateral. Since then, every year, speculations over the plan peak for a while during the budget period. Yet only a handful of people have benefitted from the scheme so far.

During the Panchayat period, then Prime Minister Kirti Nidhi Bista had first announced a plan to provide loans to educated but unemployed youths against their degree certificates to help them set up businesses. But the plan never took off. When Prakash Chandra Lohani, one of the key Panchayat figures, became finance minister in 2003, he resuscitated the idea. But his plans too were limited to paper.

In his budget speech for 2021/22, Finance Minister Bishnu Prasad Paudel once again announced loans of up to Rs. 2.5 million to aspiring entrepreneurs by accepting their university degree certificates as collateral.

Following Khatiwada’s announcement last year, Nepal Rastra Bank had issued a directive to banks to allow this kind of loan. According to the central bank, 142 project leads have taken out loans against their graduate certificates so far. “The loan amount has also increased from Rs. 0.7 million to Rs. 2.5 million,” says NRB Spokesperson Dev Kumar Dhakal. The NRB is now coming up with a new directive to implement Finance Minister Paudel’s program, says Dhakal

Any unemployed individual with a Bachelor’s degree can apply for a loan, officials say. If a bank trusts the business plan, it can issue the loan. Dhakal adds, “The bank should be convinced that the business plan is promising.”

That only a handful of people have benefitted from the project shows that the scheme is problematic, says former Finance Secretary Rameshore Khanal. In addition to the complicated directives from the central bank, Nepali banks don’t have human resources to assess the feasibility of business plans. If someone comes with an idea and submits a proposal to a bank, the proposal cannot be properly accessed. “Without proper infrastructures and human resources, we can’t expect any such scheme to succeed,” he adds.

Even for those selected under the scheme, the banks offer them loans in installments rather than a lump sum. “Just as you get installments to complete your home affected by the quake, you get installments from the bank only after you show the bank your project’s progress,” says Dhakal.

Bank representatives inspect the project periodically to decide whether to issue the next installment. Also, the bank may also choose to issue the payment to the concerned business instead of the individual loan-taker so that the fund is not misused.

In other countries where such programs have been implemented, if a skilled person asks for a loan against their academic credentials, the bank helps them prepare a proposal. The banks themselves provide alternative startup plans, if required. For instance, PayPal was a startup proposal financed by a commercial bank. “We don’t see the same spirit and system in Nepal,” adds Khanal.

“Not a single Nepali bank has the mechanism to investigate the future of a project or a startup,” he says, adding the only thing our banks do is evaluate physical collateral and issue loans accordingly.

Govinda Aryal, a resident of Butwal, has a strange experience to share regarding the loan. In 2019, when he approached Nepal Bank Limited for a loan against his certificates, the manager told him that he could get the loan only against something valuable. Acharya explains, “This might have happened as the loan quota may already have been exhausted.”

NRB has provided a quota of 500 and 300 to commercial and development banks respectively for this kind of loan. But banks are still reluctant as they are far from assured they can recover their money if the business fails. “To make every concerned body comfortable, we are working on a new directive,” Acharya tells ApEx.

Most people think this loan system will only benefit political workers, and Khanal is one of the skeptics. “To get a loan against educational certificates in Nepal, either you have to be rich or you should have political backing,” he says.

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.