Alternative to Petroleum Crisis published in CE Newsletter

Clean Energy NEWS Vol. 7, Number 34, July 17, 2007
CE News is published weekly by Clean Energy Nepal.

Alterantive to Petroleum Crisis

By Shreekar Pradhan

Some People are of in favor of price hike as the only solution for current fuel crisis in Nepal. But, in the current situation, this bold step will have to go through a difficult resistance which we have already faced earlier too. Will the current transitional government have that courage? Or will it wait till Constitutional Assembly?

I strongly believe the government of Nepal along with Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) is not able to come up with strong reason for price hike till date. They are not able to convince the people that the price hike is not for the bonus/revenue for the government/NOC. The critical question is, “How can people be assured that the price hike is for them and not for government/NOC?"

In the current context, the government should come up with a strong policy which provides relief to the people from dependency of petroleum products. A number of policies have been taken in other cities to relieve them from pollution and promoting energy security. Good examples can be found in neighbouring countries like India and Pakistan, where millions of CNG vehicles are running. Pakistan is considered as number one CNG vehicle user in the world. They are using their own resources and also relieving people from air pollution. In our context, we have hydro resources and we have already developed electric vehicles. So the government should come up long term strategy on cleaner electric vehicles. The strategy should not be isolated strategy as we see in the past. The promotion of electric vehicles should be for limiting the use of petroleum products. The current policy of government is more focused on managing the demand and supply of petroleum products and it does not consider the alternative way of limiting the petroleum demand by promoting electric vehicles in the long run. The government should start consider the following implementation strategy without any delay:

a) East to West Electric Train: It will relieve pressure on urbanization and tourism can be boosted in other parts of the country. Expenses relevant to road maintenance, vehicle maintenance, health can be lessened to larger extent. On top of that, a larger rural mass can be employed

b) Electric Train that links India to Tibet through Nepal: This has been thought for long time as this would boost the economy of country as two Asian giants will start trading with Nepal as transit point.

c) Electric Train in Outer Ring Road: A huge relieve from city centered urbanization to rural satellite towns. It will reduce the vehicle activities in the Kathmandu valley and reduce the pollution.

d) Electric Vehicles like safa temp, buses: It can be used in the central city and can be used as feeding vehicles in every route.

Now the question arises how to meet the cost for the infrastructure. Government should come up with strong policy with a committment that the revenue generated from petroleum products will be spent for building cleaner vehicle infrastructure and for limiting petroleum product dependency in the long run. A price hike with this reason may have soft resistance from the people. Rather than direct price hike, the government can levy certain emission tax, energy tax, congestion tax and carbon tax on these petroleum products or vehicles using it. This way, in one part, the government is limiting the petroleum product use and in other hand it will be showing the government's commitment towards promoting cleaner vehicles in the country. But importantly, these taxes need to be spent for the development of the cleaner electric vehicles in the country. If every citizen feels that the money he/she has been charged is for the purpose of clean transportation, then he/she may not be hesitant to be charged at all. They will be more assured once the development starts to take place and it should be a pride for every citizen that it is his/her contribution that has made it possible.

(In response to article "Alternative to petroleum Crisis" by Ganesh Regmi-Kathmandu Post-July 9, 2007, CE News Vol 7, No. 33)