Kishor Basyal

In a recently unveiled budget for 2021/22, the government made public its plan to lift the restriction imposed on mining of construction materials like sand, aggregates and boulder, among others. Included in the plan is the opening of hills and mountains for the extraction of their deposits, which are essential for a range of construction projects. The rationale behind the plan is to reduce the ever-growing trade deficit of the country by exporting the materials, stated the budget document.
The announcement came under fire and the government has been accused of paving the path for the environmental destruction. Since most of the criticisms were from the leaders of the political parties - both opposition and ruling - it was not hard to draw a conclusion that the uproar was politically motivated. Others were from a section of media claiming that if the plan were to be materialised, the Chure’s rivers and hills would soon be denuded of its riches, leading to catastrophe-like situation in the area. That left many wondering: How would the Chure be impacted so adversely when the plan even doesn’t mention the word “Chure” in it. If one goes through what these media outlets wrote or broadcast, their whole story is linked with Chure, not with what experts of the concerned field have to say on the matter - a reminder that our journalism is yet to fully follow the professional norms and ethics.

Clarification
To clarify the matter, the Finance Ministry on June 2 stated that the policy of the government is to allow the mining in the region other than the Chure, only after consultation with experts from the Department of Mine and Geology (DoMG), not to mention in compliance with the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA). “The whole purpose of the plan is to conserve the Chure area from exploitation, not otherwise,” reads the Ministry’s statement. What that implies is that extraction of the materials is not from the riverbeds, but from the high mountains above the Chure area.
Nepal is mostly a mountainous country, and these mountains house hundreds of millions of tonnes of mines and minerals whose worth in monetary value is in hundreds of billions of dollars, if not more, according to geologists whom this writer talked with. The demands of such materials are huge in international markets, especially in the emerging economies where demand for concrete is on the rise.
We are also an impoverished country, despite being blessed with mountains of wealth. Wouldn’t it be in the interest of the country and the people if we open up the resource-rich areas after considering their EIAs by the experts? After all, that is how development is done in the developed parts of the world. And that is how countries - from China to the US - have become rich and powerful enough to wield political and economic clouts all over the world.
There are enough evidences to corroborate the fact that China’s rise is inextricably linked with the optimisation of its natural resources. Today China produces some 80 per cent of the total rare-earth metals, used in high-tech electronics — from smartphone to military equipment. In 2019, at the height of trade war between the US and China, some pundits even went to the extent of speculating that China can bring the US, a major buyer of the metals from the Asian giant, to its knees if it weaponises the sale of the metals to that country.
Clearly, a country’s natural resources enable it to gain upper hand at times when the relationship to its neighbours or partners is on the rock. In other words, natural resources provide much-needed leverage to the countries possessing them. According to geologist Dilendra Raj Pathak, well-managed and well-run industries exporting the materials can significantly bolster the living conditions of all the inhabitants of a country, not just of the people living in the vicinity of the areas where they are located. Writing for NepalPress, a private media outlet, he goes on to say that only electricity and construction materials are things we can export, so why not do that?

Domestic demand
Senior geologist at DoMG, Kumar Khadka, with whom this writer talked with over phone, said that the plan is concerned with the mines located in 92 different places in 14 districts which are well-above the Chure and that if carried out in accordance with EIA and other assessments, it bodes well for the country. “At the moment we are facing shortfall of stones for the construction of highways in Dhangadi and Butwal for lack of mining projects as unveiled in the announcement. So, even to meet domestic demand of the construction materials, these projects must see light of the day,” he said, adding, “There’s nothing wrong with the plan to drag it into controversy.”
Let’s take a moment to think about India and Bangladesh, two neighboring countries of ours. Because they are developing countries, they both are on infrastructure building spree, and hence are concrete-hungry. The per capita consumption of cement, a material that holds all the elements of the concrete together, in those countries are 195 kg and 187 kg respectively, according to their official data. That amounts to billions of tonnes given their population sizes.
What is even more interesting is that the use of aggregates is at least four times that of cement, based on the practice of construction industry. In order to satiate its demand for high-grade construction materials, India even imports them from places that are thousands of kilometers away. This causes their price to skyrocket, resulting in more transportation cost than that of the imported material itself. On the other hand, if we supply them, the transportation distance would be only few hundred kilometers at most, because of the close proximity between the two neighbours, making the price of the materials competitive. That is sure to put Nepal in a good position to tap into their markets.
In light of these assessments, what can be deducted is that if the plan is executed in line with how it should, we will be able to move in the direction of prosperity. No country in the world has prospered without putting into use the resources it’s bestowed with. And Nepal cannot be an exception. Let the plan sail through smoothly.

(Basyal is a TRN journalist)