Is Lo Manthang ready for electricity?

Government reluctance to admit its limitations urges villages to think big when it comes to development. They are encouraged to ask for airports and highways rather than to initiate projects that they are already able to maintain..Walking up to Lo Manthang, the ´capital´ of Upper Mustang, the graffiti on the rocks are still full of the pledges made during the generalelections of June 1991. The candidates of the three main political parties ambitiously promised to bring a road in lO years, and electricity in five..A road to connect Lo Manthang to Baglung, in the mid-hills near Pokhara, would have to be about 150 kilometres long and would be difficult to align along the steep flanks of the Kali Gandaki valley. The Karakoram Highway of Pakistan, which traverses similar terrain, is considered a marvel of modern engineering but would be prohibitively expensive to replicate. The high way to Lo Manthang would cost at least- NRs 1.5 billion (US 32 million), which would certainly require foreign aid, loans and international contractors..The politicians´ promise of electricity, though a bit more modest, would nevertheless cost much more than the annual budget of the entire district. The politicians promised a hydropower plant at a village named Ghami, to cost an estimated NRs 100 million..The Mustang leadership´s vision of desirable projects and development are ´large-scale and implanted´ rather than ´home-grown and evolved´. Development is seen to be something that will be delivered as a fully packaged gift from the outside, from the Government. The leadership assumes that the community can leap into development and that the support for this jump will come from karmacharis — bureaucrats and administrators — and the Government budget..There is little room for evolution in any of this. The development of local capability plays no role..Development DesiresThe politicians´ perception of what development is seems to be shared by the village folks of Upper Mustang, the Loba, as well. So it is not only the District Chairman, for example, but also the Loba on the mil who feels that a road and electricity are high priorities. The villager walking up fro m Chuksang to Lo Manthang with grain on his back collected in exchange for labour will say: ´´You see life is difficult here, if we had roads and buses like you have in Kathmandu, life would be so much easier." Another will complain: "There is no firewood here, and you cannot imagine how cold it gets in the winter; with electricity, we could cook on electricity, we could heat our houses…".This is the level at which many development desires are being expressed. Since the opening of Upper Mustang to tourism in April of this year, the ward representatives of three out of the six main villages even submitted a joint application for an airport. Such an airport would bring tourists directly to Lo Manthang rather than through the Jomsom airstrip and up the Kali Gandaki trail..In addition to the question of what are the real needs of the people, therefore, we must also ask: who voices those real needs? And who does one ask to voice them if not the representatives?.Do the promised ´products´ match a real need? Interestingly, during the electioneering, no promises were made to provide a health post, school or agricultural extension office. No matter how poor these services are, they are considered to be already supplied and, therefore, not worthy to be the objects of political activism. This even though the poor of Upper Mustang would probably benefit more from a properly functioning health post than from a highway or airport. Presently, those who can afford it head down to the District Headquarters of Jomosom, in Lower Mustang, or to Pokhara for medical care..A development organisation that is starting work in Lo Manthang recently proposed building a health post that would have a reliable stock of medicine at reasonable prices and be staffed year round by a qualified health assistant. The costs.would be borne by the interest accruing from a revolving fund. The organisation proposed that the villagers might put up some of the money for the fund, from the payments they received for labour contributed to other development activities. The villagers thought about it and decided that, as there already was a Government health post in Lo Manthang, they did not want to invest in another one..The Lobas seemed unable to distinguish between the proposed project and what the Government was providing — an over-staffed health post which was closed all winter and whose drug supply rarely lasts more than a season. The fact that a Government health post existed seemed enough for the villagers. Meanwhile, their desires moved on to bigger things for which there is no budget..Numbers SpeakAs far as ´development´ is concerned, the public´ and its representatives both appear to be satisfied with numbers, and so the Government proceeds to provide them: so many kilometres of road, so many kilowatts of power, so many hectares of irrigated land, so many schools and so many health posts….Indeed, rhetoric seems to be all that the villagers are fed. The Lobas are unsure of how the assurances are to be implemented. Of electricity for Lo Manthang, some thought that it would be brought up from Jomosom, while others had heard that it would be generated from the river by Ghami village. The Lobas believed that there would be plenty of power for lighting, cooking Wd heating — all of it to be available at government rates.The promise to bring electricity was of special interest to me. I was going up to Lo Manthang to try to persuade the inhabitants to move a head with their community-owned 22 kW electrification scheme.Equipment had already been delivered, but construction was stalled due to political rivalries..At a public meeting in Lo Manthang,some inhabitants expressed their desire to proceed with the installation but wanted d softer terms on the loan taken from the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB/N). They were confident that the scheme could pay for its operation and maintenance from a monthly tariff if it did not also have to service a loan..A larger number at the meeting, however, were categorically opposed to involvement in the project. They wished no share of the responsibility. Why can´ t the Government build the scheme?", they asked. "We will pay the monthly rates and, when things breakdown, the Government will lake the equipment to Kathmandu in a helicopter and fix it".Alternative economist E.F. Schumacher talked of development starting not with goods, but with people. He claimed that, among the causes of poverty, the material factors—such as lack of natural wealth, capital or infrastructure — are entirely secondary. Schumacher believed that the primary causes of poverty are non-material, they lie in deficiencies in education, organisation and discipline.Painless DevelopmentYet here they were, the people of Lo Manthang, very much asking for materials and implanted development. They wished to shun the slow and uncertain process of capability -building. "We do not want to take any of these risks," they were saying, and, "we certainly do not want the responsibility for these changes. We have elected representatives that will go to the Government and demand the road and the electricity. We will pay our bus fares and we will pay for the units recorded on the electricity meter every month." Were they asking, perhaps, for painless development?.One factor that contributed to Lo Manthang´s reluctance to complete the small, community-owned and operated hydro scheme certainly was the recent experience of Ghyonhup, Qiarang and Marang, which had built their own hydro schemes in the past two years :— with unhappy results. The three villages had gone to the ADB/N, taken out loans, and hired a development agency from the southern-Nepal engineering town of Butwal to build and install their hydro units. The District Chairman of the time had motivated the villages to implement the schemes..It would have seemed to Schumacher that Chyonhup, Charang and Marang had made all the right development- sensitive moves. Village people had taken matters into their own hands; they had made electricity their own -concern rather than leave it to the Government. Villages had cooperated in contributing labour and collecting cash door-to-door. The equipment they had installed was made in Nepal and could be repaired in Nepal and, furthermore, the power plant operators were locals from the villages..And yet, for all this, a couple of years down the line the throe schemes are barely surviving. No village has repaid its loan and the electricity supply is erratic. The experience of Chyonhup, Charang and Marang have convinced all the other villages of Upper Mustang that this is not the way to do things..Right choice of technology, and the daring of villagers to take control, do not appear to guarantee results. What is required? The process is long and slow so organisations that are promoting development must be willing to stay around longer than they did in the case of the three villages of Upper Mustang. The help that the villagers required was not so much in the hydropower equipment but inlhe´software1—in helping the community to organise, in the support of proper management, in the discipline required to make monthly collections. In other words, development organisations must assist in the process of making the villagers more confident of their capabilities..The question is not whether the Ghami scheme would be better than the individual micro hydro schemes in the three villages, but whether the capability to run the schemes is present. Given that the Ghami scheme is larger man the three smaller schemes, certainly, the necessary management and technical skills do not exist at present to operate and maintain it..While at their present capability level the Lobas cannot run the Ghami project (if it were built, the Government would have to run it), village committees and local operators could easily operate the smaller village-level schemes —- if they are properly supported. It is only with the confidence at comes from success in running smaller projects that the villagers can tackle the challenge of larger schemes..One more important question needs to be answered: Why should the people of Lo Manthang lake responsibility for their development when the people in Kathmandu do not? For purely practical political reasons, the Government will never invest the same amount of money on the person in Lo Monthang as in Kathmandu. Besides, the demands of villages has created such a bottomless pit that even a Government that would want to go beyond development sloganeering cannot provide all the boons that the hinterland asks for..Lo Manthang and KathmanduToday, even after the completion of the Seventh Five Year Plan, only 1 l percent of the population has access to electricity. The people of places such as Lo Manthang represent but a tiny pro¬portion of this 11 per cent. Of the 7,000 km of motorable roads built in 30 years of planned development, none penetrates areas such as Lo Manthang..The Government needs to think carefully and state clearly what it can and cannot do for the villagersofNepal.lt is debilitating, for example, when His people of Lo Manthang are led to believe that the Government can bring them electricity from Ghami. Rather than build up their capabilities from smaller schemes, it is easier for them to wail for the larger hand-out project..The Govemment must now produce a po licy that clearly slates its limitations. This cannot be the vague level in which the minister says, "Our resources are limited and we need community participation in development activities." In small hydro, for example, the Government must state specifically that it can give only so much support and that rural communities must build the schemes themselves. Or that it will build highways up to a certain sue but it cannot build the link roads. The commit-ments maybe modest, but once made the Government must be duty-bound lo fulfill them..This kind of limit-setting will not only cut the Government´s development burden but also stimulate people to go get things for themselves rather than wait for Kathmandu to come through. Most importantly, it will make for vibrant communities that can take development into their own hands, with some clearly specified assistance from the Government or other institutions..Meanwhile, development agencies and non governmental organisations need to work much more on the ´software´ aspects of development. Everyone knows you need pipes for a drinking water scheme, for example, but few agencies bother with helping villagers create sustainable management systems. As things stand, NGOs are too busy "handing over" projects with management packages for the villagers to run..After the equipment is delivered and the construction complete, they should stay around to provide management and maintenance until the villagers are able to take up running the services by themselves. After all, the real problems of management start after the contractors and consultants go home down the valley..Pandey works in Nepal with the Intermediate Technology Development Group.