Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Better governance can prevent disasters' that was published in Newsband

Better governance can prevent disasters

Nepal is saddled with questions related to disaster management and state structure, to be answered by its polity and those in charge of governance. The recent earthquake resulted in loss of more than 7,000 lives, physical and psychological injuries to many more, and extensive damage to property rescue, relief and rehabilitation efforts

It’s a pity that the Nepal government has displayed its incapacity to address the severity of the problem, as aid flow from agencies, and countries including India and China, are not found to be enough.

There is something wrong with Nepal’s politics. Nepal has not been able to complete the Constitution-writing project started in 2008. Poor governance has rendered Nepal a difficult place to live in. Hence people of this place prefer to migrate outside where there is green pasture.

It is necessary for Nepal to make itself a truly federal republic with greater decentralisation of power at the local levels with diversified economic base. Only then this country will have better roads and more responsive administrative systems. If these federal units had been structured in such a manner as to give local communities greater power and responsibility, would they not have been more prepared to handle disaster?

Nepal being a seismically fragile zone, it is necessary for its people to be ever prepared for any more such tragedies. Recent nature fury in the form of earthquake suggested that development has almost taken against nature. Conservation of nature is very necessary and should be seriously considered. This way, we can save our future generation from facing such disasters.

What could be done as an immediate solution is to use the military and para-military forces which have enough training to have the decision making powers also in times of such disasters. This should be bereft of any political conundrum.

It's time for the Nepal government to expedite the process of constitution making, ensure better governance to the people with the decentralization of power, which helps to mitigate the disasters of the seismically zone valley.

If anything, this unfortunate Earth quake calamity in Nepal seems to have opened up two human problems that afflict not only Nepal, but almost all small nations in the tropics and the "East". Uppermost is the problem of Governance, which Nepal's case is very unsound and docile, to say the least. The other problem, which is equally important (if not more) is socio-economic and environmental development. The two problems are complementary and corollary. The ruling elite would have to answer these two problems on war footing.