You navigate your way through heaps of garbage piled on the roadside that tends to grow bigger each day until you have to practically walk on the road. Dangling wires jut out in awkward angles causing you to bend and twist to maneuver your way. Not to mention the potholes that require you to watch where you step with great vigilance. And then, there’s a clogged drainage system that leads to flooded roads every single time it rains. All in all, Kathmandu is one flawed city. And the tragedies of living in a flawed city are many. From daily life inconveniences to accidents, there seems to be absolutely no respite.
Sanjay Maharjan, 26, a medical student, was headed to meet his friend on his motorbike when he met with an accident that left him with several bruises and a broken front tooth. He wasn’t drunk, speeding or driving recklessly. On the way to Kumaripati, the unstable traffic post at Manbhawan toppled and fell on him when another motorbike hit against it. “I don’t understand why there’s a traffic post smack in the middle of a road that doesn’t need one,” says Maharjan. The locals of the area who witnessed the accident weren’t very surprised to see the traffic post sway dangerously before hitting Maharjan and causing him to fall off his bike as it had caused such an accident at least a dozen of times already. [break]
“A motorbike rider had to stop abruptly to avoid hitting people who were crossing the street and ended up bumping against the post causing it to collapse on Maharjan ,” says Bimal KC, a local of Manbhawan, who witnessed the entire episode. KC adds that people in that area often wonder why the post was put there in the first place.
“It leads to jams and accidents and I’ve yet to see a traffic police official use it,” says KC who once got in a quarrel with traffic authorities in a bid to get it removed.
Clogged road at Jamal following a heavy rainfall
“They said since there are schools in the area, they might need it sometime or the other. That was their explanation,” he says shaking his head at the incredulity of the idea.Maharjan’s accident is not a one off and there have been many similar accidents around the valley. Sujan Karmacharya, 34, an architect, fractured his arm after he got thrown off his motorbike when the wheels got entangled in a jumble of wires in the middle of the road at Baneshwor.
Pratigya Thapa, 29, a master’s student, got stabbed by electrical wires while walking on the pavement at Tripureshwor. She was left with a bad wound above her right eye. Sameer KC, 21, a commerce student, was walking back home when he stepped on a puddle that turned out to be a pot hole and fractured his leg.
The city of Kathmandu is all about navigation, it seems and any lapse to do so results in serious consequences. Ravi Shakya, 42, a civil engineer says fault lies in haphazard planning, failure to implement proper and sustainable plans and lack of rules and regulations.Keshab Adhikari, DIG and spokesperson of Central Police admits that the city is in desperate need of attention and a proper traffic system would go a long way in alleviating the current scenario. “The issue of dividers causing accidents and confusion has cropped up time and again and we’re looking into it but at the same time the people need to abide by the traffic rules to ensure their own safety and prevent further commotion,” says DIG Adhikari.
Dr Bhaikaji Tiwari, Chief of Kathmandu Valley Town Development Implementation Committee (KVTDIC) however begs to differ and says that rules and regulations can’t help much when the system itself is faulty. “In foreign countries, you won’t see dividers in roads other than highways and you can’t make right turnsat every step. You have to at least cover a distance of minimum three to four kilometers to make a turn,” he says explaining that in Kathmandu there are no such provisions. The sagging wires and the haphazardly placed dividers and traffic posts are not the only problems the valley residents face on a daily basis. With monsoon in full swing, it’s that time of the year when many roads get flooded making walking and even driving difficult.
“If we could’ve just removed the debris left by the road widening campaign and at least graveled the roads before the onset of monsoon, then it wouldn’t have been this bad,” says Shakya adding that the state of the roads coupled with clogged drainage pipes makes the situation worse. Tiwari agrees with Shakya and says that it is indeed because of lack of proper planning that the city is getting reduced to shambles with each passing day. The road widening campaign has added to the chaos than curb the traffic problems. The piles of gravel, cement and sand coupled with dug up and unpaved roads lead to massive traffic jams in some places and a lot of minor accidents almost everywhere.
Government statistics show that in just one decade, from 1980 to 1990, the population of Kathmandu had swelled by 44 percent, the influx mainly of migrant workers from the rural areas who flock to the Nepali capital in search of work. The need to provide them with housing, electricity, water and sewage lines added to the increasing disorder. Often pollution, corruption and disruption are simply manifestations of certain irrepressible processes of urban growth. But it flourishes where planning fails.“The need for electrical lines, water pipes, sewage system increased as people moved to Kathmandu. And since there is no proper system, it led to the state our city is in at the moment,” says Tiwari adding that the mass of wires that can be seen dangling at almost every electrical pole is also television and internet cables.
“Many internet companies and cable operators have just used the electrical poles without permission and no one takes responsibility for that. The cable companies are least bothered because they are using the electrical poles and Nepal Electricity Authority doesn’t care because the wires are not theirs,” he adds. But Tiwari also believes that the residents of Kathmandu are quick to blame the government but don’t do their part in maintaining the city. If the government and the residents were to work together then there wouldn’t be such a fiasco.
“A lot is being said against the government in the present context but there’s also a lack of awareness in the residents,” he adds. The government should work on proper infrastructure set up and after that it’s the residents’ responsibility to maintain it, says Tiwari. For instance, he brings up the issue of water pipe lines. “Drinking water pipes should be laid on either side of the road instead of the current situation where they run under the middle of the road. When this is done, people won’t have to dig up the entire length of the road to connect their water lines to the main system,” explains Tiwari adding that now is the right time to do so since most roads are under reconstruction but people also shouldn’t just dig up roads randomly to get their water supply.With the residents frustrated at the governments’ inability to attend to the city’s needs and the government in turn blaming the people for their lack of awareness in maintaining the city, hopes of ever seeing even a semi organized Kathmandu seems bleak.
But the mayhem is an issue that needs to be given priority, both by the government and the people. If not, it won’t be long before a city known as the land of temples turns into a city of bricks and concrete because as it is, we are halfway there already. As Tiwari stresses, the blame game will not get us anywhere. The government needs to do its part and the resident theirs. No more, no less.
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