All About Commitment

I feel that the "NO Horn" policy of the Kathmandu Metropolitan Traffic Police Department and the Kathmandu Metropolitan City has been implemented quite effectively; this is not something that I’ve had the luxury of getting used to as a long time resident of the valley. These days the valley roads are found peaceful in the absence of unnecessary and haphazard honking, and it is impressive. These are the same motorists who used to blow the horn of their vehicles as loudly as possible until the last day of Chaitra; how come they suddenly stopped this from the first of Baishakh?

This was all made achievable due to the high level of commitment of the Kathmandu Metropolitan Traffic Police Department. They seem to be determined to make the Kathmandu valley as "horn free" as possible.

 Some people might have thought that this policy would also fail like the majority of other government policies and they habitually blew their horn, but unfortunately they got caught and fined. A report by the Metropolitan Traffic Police indicates that from the first of Baishakh up until the fourth of Baishakh, 657 motorists in Kathmandu, 161 in Lalitpur and 33 in Bhaktapur were fined. Considering the massive numbers of vehicles on the roads of the Kathmandu valley, this number is very nominal. All in all we can say that the "No Horn" policy has been successful so far.

Another such a successful example is "No Load-shedding in Kathmandu." This has been made possible by the continuous efforts of a single person, Mr. Kul Man Ghising, the managing director of Nepal Electricity Authority. This time last year, we had to put up with up to 18 hours of load-shedding every single day. It is amazing that people are not suffering from even an hour's load-shedding this year. Mr. Ghising has managed to do all of this through developing internal management and some import of electricity from India. Furthermore, he has also taken an initiative to control leakage of power and the practice of unfair distribution. His ultimate goal is to make the entire nation load-shedding free.

On the other hand, there came other policies like ‘no use of plastic bags’, ‘no littering on the roads’ and ‘no spitting through bus windows’. Even though there were fines declared for those found infringing upon these rules, people did not care to comply. Why was this the case? The answer is as simple as there was a lack of commitment on the part of the concerned people, so the general public did not bother to follow what the authority said.

It can be concluded that announcing policies is not that big of a deal; the effectiveness of implementation is what really makes a difference. If the people who are responsible for implementing something are really committed to bringing about change, then nothing can stop them as the above "No Horn" and "No Load-shedding "examples show. However, if they are reluctant towards implementation and follow up sides, history shows that policies alone cannot succeed. 

(Published in an English Daily The Rising Nepal on Friday, April 28, 2017 ) 

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