Development efforts in Nepal and Media

Development efforts in Nepal and Media

Periodic plans and media in Nepal

Development, government, and press in Nepal

Current development communication scenario in Nepal

"With the overthrow of the Ranas, Nepal was ill prepared to meet the challenge of development shared by Third World countries after the Second World War. What it did not share with many of these countries were the positive legacies of past colonialism. Nepal had little sense of the outside world, no infrastructure to support development, and no trained manpower resources. Various foreign governments were willing to provide aid, but there was no effective indigenous administration available to determine the country's needs, accept and distribute this aid. Nepal was actually able to spend only less than sixty-five per cent of the total allocated development budgets during the first five year plan period of 1956-61."

Dor Bahadur Bista, Fatalism and Development, Nepal's struggle for Modernization

The first newspaper in Nepal, The Gorakhapatra, was established in 1901 AD. Even the Broadcasting began in the country in 1951 with the establishment of the government-owned and operated Radio Nepal. However the Kingdom was not entered in the age of planned development by the time.

Nepal started planned development in 2013 B.S. The First Five-year plan (1956-61) allocated about 576 million for development expenditures. Transportation and communication received top priority with over 36 percent of the budget allocations. The attempt continued under various names in several successive plan-periods. Nine periodic plans including one-three-year plan have already been implemented so far. Now we are running in Tenth Five years plan. The ongoing plan has emphasized the role of communication for the betterment of daily life of the common people.

It was about three decades ago, Communication was introduced with high priority in the periodic plan. It was during fourth five years plan of 2027-2032 B.S or 1971-73 A D. The plan had emphasized transportation and Communication. The government prioritized the agenda for the development of transport and communication and 125.20 cores were allocated for the purpose. During the same plan the government came up with a national Communications plan (NCP) to improve communication in the government and corporate sectors. The NCP became a part of the nation's five-year plan and served to strengthen the country's communication infrastructure.

In fact, a national communication policy had began to emerge after the overthrow of the autocratic Rana regime in 1951.In the decade that followed, professional organizations such as the Nepal Journalists Association, private news agencies, the Nepal Sambad Samiti, and the Sagarmatha Sambad Samiti emerged, and the government appointed the first press commission. The government recognized the need for using communication strategies to achieve national development goals. Thus, it set up a ministry of information and broadcasting.

It is noteworthy, that by the 1980s the government had not clear idea about the role of mass media in national development. Even though it had been allocating budget for the transportation and communication. It was continued during the fifth five year plan of 2032-2037 too.

The years following the 1980s brought about a communications explosion in Nepal. During this period, television and computers heralded a new era, marked by modern by modern way of working and living in households and offices. Around this time, some well-to-do families in Kathmandu and other urban areas of Terrain developed an interest in watching Indian television channels.

During the period political awareness spread to a significant level. It started to interfere in the policy making process. And that was possible due to the media, which played a role of medium of dilouge.Changes in press laws in 1981 fostered the development of small, weekly tabloids, which multiplied more than four-fold from about 90 to 400, in just two years. The private-sector press criticized the authoritarian political system. In the 1980s, this press exposed the increasing corruption in the government and brought attention to the discontent.

Role of communications had not linked properly with development by the1980s.Eventhough, establishment of Radio Nepal and publication of newspapers during this time played a significant role to create political and social awareness in public. During the period from the 1950s till the 1970s, Nepal relied on traditional system of mass communications for the limited access to information. It was during the Sixth Plan period (2037-2042) or (1980-1985) that the feasibility studies on TV broadcasting in Nepal was conducted.

Steps were initiated in 1983 towards establishing a TV channel in Nepal in accordance with the concept of "Communications for Development." In January 1985, Nepal Television project was established under the then Ministry of Communications. In February 1986, NTV project converted in to a corporation.

Sixth plan aimed at improving the existing means of communication for developing a conducive environment for social and economic development. It further planned to develop the communication facilities in such a way that it would enhance the national unity and integrity as well as maintain a positive image of Nepal and the Nepali around the world. It also had an ambition of providing at least the basic means of communication to all parts of the country. It believed that the best use of the means of communication would be to use it for the promotion and preservation of the art and culture of the nation.

The Eighth plan recognized communication as a means to ensure the people's right to know. It aimed to develop the media sector as an important infrastructure for the development of the nation. It further aimed to make means of communication reach the rural areas. Efforts were to be made to make the communication sector economically and financially independent. During the period government improved the broadcasting condition of Radio Nepal and planned to introduce Frequency Modulation (FM) broadcasting system from the private sector. Total of 5770.0 million was spent in the information and communication in the Eighth plan period. During the plan, the strategy to provide common type of communication service to the commoners had adopted and ensures balanced development of various means of communication.

However there is still some sort of lacking regarding the coordination among the government, media and development efforts in the country. The Ninth Plan that was completed in the fiscal year 2058-59 had mentioned the communication. But it could not do anything substantial in the area. This plan stressed on the high priority to the proper development and expansion of the information and the communication sector with the objectives of extending the communication services to the rural areas throughout the country, expanding required communication system for the required infrastructure, assisting in increasing the economic growth rate while mobilizing the communication sector, alleviating poverty which still remain a serious challenge to the nation, and eradicating social backwardness.

The Tenth plan, the third planned document after the restoration of democracy or the first plan in the 21 century is underway at present. It had commenced in the year 2059-60 with such aims:

• Encouraging private sectors for development and promotion of information technology sector in order to eradicate poverty.
• Developing sustainable and competitive information technology by using modern technology in the rural area.
• Introducing new development programmes in information technology for socio-economic development.

Just before the beginning of the Tenth plan Nepal had the following scenario in the Human Development front:

Literacy: 49.2 %

Primary School enrolment: 80.4%

Longevity: 61.9 years

Maternal Mortality: 415 per lac

Total Fertility: 4.1 %

Population Growth: 2.25 %

Delivery Service by trained hand: 13.0 %

Drinking water: 71.61

Human Development Index: 0.466

Communication facilities in Nepal are also very poor. According to the UNDP Human Development Report, 2003 the country is in 143 rank of HDI. Telephone, Cellular phone and Internet are available for 13.0, 1 and 2.6 per thousand people respectively. Same condition is prevailing regarding the mass communication.

Use of information technology by the media is one of the significant developments in Nepal after the advent of democratic political system in 1990. But the flow of information as well as availability of the media throughout the country is still unbalanced. According to the latest data from Press Council Nepal, number of registered newspaper is 1620. Among them 26 percent is regular. And distribution of these newspapers is 70, 15, 9, 4 and 2 for the mid, eastern, western, mid western and far west respectively. Among the 52 of lisence holders, 42 FM are operating throughout the country. Total of 7 TV are presenting Nepali programmes.

One should be able to see an intensification of an overall trend without denying a past for it. Underdevelopment in Nepal, therefore, has a long history whose roots lie in the continuous, if uneven, process of peripheralization. If it was the world capitalist power, the British Empire, under whose ausices peripheralization and underdevelopment marched ahead before 1947, the Indian dominant alliance has been the immediate motive force in this process in the more recent past as well as at present. (Mishra 110)

In nutshell, there is still a room for coordinated role of media and the government for the development awareness and efforts. As Willbur Scharmme development is impossible without the right to information of the people, we have miles to go to achieve such noble goal.

Works Cited:

Mishra, Chaitanya. Development and Underdevelopment: A Preliminary Sociological Perspective. In James F. Fisher (Ed) Occasional Papers in Sociology and Anthropology vol 1. Kathmandu: Central Dept. of Sociology and Anthropology TU, 1987.