Investment in infrastructure: Nepal can learn from Bangladesh
By Indra Adhikari
On December 24, our van carrying five of us, including driver and an interpreter, rushed to Laxmipur (the locals call it Lakkipur), the five-hour drive to south-east from the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka. It was part of the election observation mission under Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL), but for me it an opportunity to look at closely this part of Bangladesh. Notably, the infrastructure built in this part of the country made think of what lacked in Nepal.
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| Black-topped road in remote Ramganj | |
Nepal has many things to learn from Laxmipur. Liberal social norms might have opened up Nepali society faster than this district but we are far behind in building development infrastructure.
On the second day of our interaction with local people, we reached to remote villages such as Char Gazi - another two-hour drive from our residence, just a few kilometers away from the Bay of Bengal. What I wondered of this district during our drive was the absence of rough roads all along. In fact, we drove to such far off villages that we nearly lost our way back to residence in the evening and during all these travels, we found muddy road only for five minutes.
Ramgoti Upazilla is the remotest part of the district. Mostly filled with coconut and betel nut forests with hundreds of ponds, the breeding center for mosquitoes, the Upazilla has very little land for agricultural activities.
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| Laxmipur has advantage for agriculture due to marshy land and water naturally reserved in hundreds of ponds | |
"We plant paddy thrice a year," a local resident in Char Lawrence said. Before I inquired why it was so, he said this was to meet the increasing demand for food in Bangladesh. Since Bangladesh is one of the heavily populated nations in South Asia, the country faces food shortage every year. As Nepal increasingly faces the short supply in food and while some Terai lands remain uncultivated, the example of the Bangladeshi farmers in their effort to meet the food shortage could help meet Nepal's needs as well. Nowhere had we find uncultivated lands in the district - it is either used for coconut and betel nut plantation or for paddy farming. The Char area - marshy lands - has become a boon for the local farmers for they need not pay for irrigation projects for farming.
Additionally, extension of double lane black-topped roads to remote areas meant the agriculture products can get access to markets. I thought these farmers have never experienced the glitches in supplying products to markets like our farmers in villages have and heard no stories of agricultural products being rotten on the field like in Rukkum or Manang. I just wished Nepali planners had thought about highways like these. They are all eight-lane highways in this part of Bangladesh which is not considered so developed.
The roads not only helped supply agricultural products to market but also ferrying products from industries to villages. Even in sparse villages, groceries have been set up, textile shops have been erected. Clothes here must be much cheaper than we get in Khotang or Rolpa for two reasons - cheap supply mechanism and local production. Remember, Bangladesh is one of the major textile producers in Asia.
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| School in Kanchanpur in western Nepal (Photo courtesy: Naya Patrika) | |
Besides, Laxmipur district is also ready leapfrog education sector as well. In four Upazillas we visited - Laxmipur, Ramgati, Roipur and Ramgunj - nowhere had we noticed school building less than two-storey concrete building.
In Nepal, we have seen village schools are in some case just the open grounds or huts with roofs likely to be blown off by minor breeze. The Laxmipur district has less than 33 percent literacy rate, with women even less than 25 percent of the total literates, but ready infrastructure can obviously lift the literacy rate to great height in very short period.
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| A primary school building in remote village of Char Gazi | |
Industrial growth in Bangladesh has many aspects to be satisfied with compared to Nepal despite political instability. Proposed candidate for Prime Minister Seikh Hasina has pledged to boost the industrial hub in Chittagong, which will enhance the industrial growth here. Politics in Nepal has immense impact in industrial sector but in Bangladesh, it is fainter - to my access at least.
Politics in Bangladesh and Nepal is marred by the same disease yet absence of political interference in bureaucracy and project implementation agencies has helped build infrastructure in Bangladesh well. The country has no unions of the government employees. Should Nepal also switch to this practice?
With educational, industrial, agricultural infrastructure and road network intact, Bangladesh seems all set to make headways in economy with the return of political instability. nepalnews.com Jan 05 09
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