Government buildings at risk

Although the government knew that the government buildings, schools, hospitals and residential buildings are vulnerable and their lifespan has expired long ago, it could not react on time. And the result is all we know.

#devastating_earthquake_April25

Judha Barun Kendra, Pulchowk Photo By: Prakash Mathema, AFP

Durbar School, country's oldest school,  at Bhotahiti Photo By: news.xinhuanet.com

In case of a disaster, government’s day to day function will crumble

Sujata Awale

Kathmandu

Most government offices in the valley built before 2003 are vulnerable to natural disaster and poor in condition according to data maintained by the Department of Urban Development and Building Construction (DUDBC). DUDBC is working on a Building Maintenance Information System (BMIS) to maintain a database of the status of government buildings across the country. Till date 1,053 government buildings have been updated in the database, of which 85 per cent are in poor state and over a thousand buildings have yet to be updated in the software.

In the system, DUDBC has recorded 83 office buildings in Kathmandu, 18 in Lalitpur and 43 in Bhaktapur. Data shows that Juddha Barud Yantra at New Road and Pulchowk, Central District Offices of Lagankhel and Babarmahal, Kathmandu Valley Municipal Development Planning Committee at Anamnagar, Department Of Hydrology and Meteorology at Babarmahal, Land Reform and Management, Water Induced Disaster Prevention Division-4 at Sipadole, among others are in a very poor state and in need of major repair and maintenance works. The department is responsible for scrutinising other buildings and looking into the need for retrofitting.

The study found that most government office buildings have an RCC frame structure, brick and stone masonry in cement mortar with RCC roof, brick or stone masonry in cement mortar with asbestos sheet and CGI sheet.

“We have found that more than 85 per cent of government buildings built before 2003 in the valley are vulnerable to natural disaster as the life span of these building have already expired,” said Prakirna Tuladhar, Senior Divisional Engineer of Building Maintenance and Evaluation Section at DUDBC. He said, “There are some buildings used for government administrative work since 1903, these need immediate retrofitting and restructuring for the safety measures.”

On who is responsible for the vulnerable state of government offices, Tuladhar said, “Earlier the government buildings were built without paying any heed to National Building Code(NBC). It was only in 2003 that the Cabinet decided make the NBC mandatory.” DUDBC is responsible for the design of buildings, implementing NBC and conducting maintenance work on government buildings. He however passed the buck by saying that they do not have adequate budget for conducting detail vulnerability assessment and restructuring work.

According to him, government buildings inside Singha Durbar, Ministerial Quarters, public hospitals, schools, et cetera need immediate vulnerability assessment to control probable damage to the property. Informing that they plan to introduce their ‘Safer Building Construction National Planner Action’ project within a month, he said, “This project will be of 30 years where five years will be spent on documentation and the rest on retrofitting all public structures across the country for safety measures.”

Although DUDBC has initiated having vulnerable assessment, it is yet to conduct a detailed survey to figure out the exact scenario of the risk that government buildings pose. “The state of government offices in the valley is critical and the worst part is there is no assessment of the vulnerability of those buildings,” said Bijay Krishna Upadhyay, Earthquake Risk Reduction Professional at National Society of Earthquake Technology. He further said, “Most buildings operating as government offices are not built for the same purpose which means they are not adopting vulnerable measures.”

Many reports showed that the valley is in a high-risk seismic zone. Citing that government agencies responsible for rescue and resource mobilisation themselves are at high risk, he questioned, “How can common people be provided reliefin the event of a catastrophe?” He opined that the government has been negligent about the probable situation in case of a natural disaster and lacks farsightedness. “The government is working on disaster preparedness plans but there is a lot to do. It should focus on a business continuity plan.” He warned, “If the government doesn’t care about the present status of the government offices, in case of any disaster, day to day function will crumble making the whole system a failure.”

According to him, there is an immediate need to safeguard properties by implementing earthquake resistance methods and retrofitting and restructuring for existing vulnerable structures.

Published on The Himalayan Times, March 7, 2015

The Way Forward

After the success of the first Hydropower Summit in 2014, the second one-day hydro-event ‘Nepal Hydropower – The way forward’ is scheduled to be held on March 5 at Hyatt Regency, Kathmandu. The government of Nepal, World Bank Group and Asian Development Bank will jointly host the programme.
This event will be significant as it will witness the signing of a MoU between the government of Nepal, GMR and Bangladesh for power supply agreement. Moreover, it will help to determine a road map to implement already signed agreements among key stakeholders to accelerate the next steps.

The event will initiate regional-level dialogue at a political level to help articulate the road ahead for Nepal, encompassing progressive policy and regulatory framework to accelerate private investment in the hydro sector. The event seeks to bring regional consensus and a regional-level power trade buy-in.

The one-day event will have a ministerial session from Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bhutan and will be focus on the vision and deliberate on cross-border energy trade and cooperation. There will also be panel discussions on promoting a transparent, stable and predictable investment regime in Nepal's hydro sector to attract developers and financiers among international, regional and local decision makers and stakeholders.

Published on March 1, THT Perspectives

Nepal Hydropower: Challenges and opportunities

Magnificent strides have been made in Nepal's hydropower sector but much more still needs to be done 

Sujata Awale

Kathmandu

Last year was a tremendous year for the hydropower sector in Nepal, which gained momentum with landmark agreements like the bilateral Power Trade Agreement (PTA), Project Development Agreements (PDAs) and regional energy cooperation pact among SAARC countries. Nepal also signed a bilateral Power Trade Agreement (PTA) with India in September, which allows both countries to import and export electricity. Furthermore, the SAARC Framework Agreement for Energy Cooperation (Electricity) endorsed at the 18th SAARC Summit in November opened the door for electricity trade between member countries and Bangladesh has also emerged as a promising market for Nepal to sell power to via India.

Implementation of agreements

“Nepal has endorsed vital agreements, however, there is still a gap on how to implement the signed agreements to trade the energy in regional countries,” said Rajendra Kishore Kshatri, Secretary of Ministry of Energy (MoE). Citing that there is a need to address contractual risk and its viability, he said, “We are formulating an ‘Electricity Act’ to address contractual risks for hydropower projects. Although the PDA will take care of the risk and other factors, we will be incorporating authority to investors to step in the projects, clauses to force majeure, termination right, application choice of law, partial government guarantee to boost the confidence of investors.”

Admitting that hydel projects are plagued with many problems, Kshatri said, “First and foremost, the attitude of the concerned people should be changed towards hydropower projects to solve these problems.” He further said that development of the country is only possible with the development of the hydropower sector and it should be prioritised.

He informed that they are planning to form a power supply agreement with Bangladesh. “There was a speculation that Nepal has to rely on the Indian market only to trade power and it can’t be competitive in terms of pricing. But now, with the agreement between Nepal and Bangladesh, it will pave the way for power trading with other regional countries too.” He said that other PTAs are also possible via India after paying wheeling charge.

Roadblocks to development

Stakeholders stated that investment risk, insufficient infrastructure development of transportation and transmission lines, unsolved land acquisition and right-of-way issues, unfavourable environment, political instability and elongated process to acquire permission and approvals for projects are stumbling blocks to further development of the hydropower sector. In this regard, Kshatri said, “It is true that we have not been able to solve the issue of right-of-way and land acquisition. To overcome these problems, there should be legislative regulatory norms.” He further added that there is a need to update policy and Acts in regard to adaptation to climate change, motivation for low impact hydel projects and work towards harmonising legal provisions with India for better business prospects.

Policy and priority

Hydropower projects being non-recourse finance, banks and financial institutions (BFIs) need to have bankable documents for risk allocation. Despite outstanding agreements, donor agencies and FDIs are still hesitant to invest in projects, as there is a lack of timely implementation of required policies.

“By spending one and a half years, we have developed bankable documents for investors in hydel projects. However, lack of implementation of policy, issues of incentives and delayed approvals make the process long and cumbersome for investors,” said Radhesh Pant, Chief Executive Officer of Nepal Investment Board. Citing that the government should fulfill obligations to create a favourable environment for investments and investors, he said, “Hydel projects automatically become the property of the government after the consensus period of 25 to 30 years. Hence, the government should regulate and supervise hydropower projects from the beginning.”

Pant said that there is a need to boost the confidence of financers with friendly policy incentives and approvals. Stating that development of South Asian countries is only possible through power and infrastructure development, he said, “SAARC countries need immense power supply and with the potential of 83,000 MW, Nepal can have a good market to supply power and achieve GDP growth.” With the regional cooperation agreements, SAARC nations can now depend upon each other for mitigating the shortage of power and related woes and expand the networks and market.

The road ahead

“The viability of any economy is related to the viability of the power sector. And therefore, financial action should be taken,” said Raghuveer Sharma, Chief Investment Officer, Infrastructure and Natural Resources at International Finance Corporation. According to him, the many countries are willing to go beyond the traditional contractual mechanism of power purchase agreements to create a new market. “India already has a market, now they are talking about the northeastern South Asia nations that are Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and India,” said Sharma, adding that investors are ready to invest in hydel projects. He said, “The market for Nepal is South Asia mainly India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. To tap these potential markets, Nepali legal policy and regulatory frameworks has to harmonise with these countries eventually from India and Bangladesh.”

Talking about the problems that keep cropping up at the local level and the recent demands by locals over the Bhotekoshi Hydropower and Khimti transmission line projects, Sharma stated, “The government should always be willing to take civil defense action to overcome these law and order issues quickly. There is a also the responsibility of both the government and developers to foresee and take action to solve these problems.” According to him, the hydro sector has taken major strides but the road ahead will require joint effort from developers and the government to deal with legal and other issues and move ahead. 

Published on March 1, THT Perspectives