How Kathmandu’s lethal pollution is its worst economic adversary?

Cities under lockdown due to the corona pandemic have provided a momentarily respite with improved air quality to many cities across the world including the ailing Kathmandu valley. At the moment, social media is awash with images of cleaner skies, clearer views and an atmosphere where air seems free from contamination. An image offering a glimpse of Mount Everest from Kathmandu has also been making the rounds, capturing the imagination of netizens for a more mesmerising Kathmandu.

But just two months ago, things were radically different. According to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) 2014 data on urban air quality, Nepal ranked 10^th in the list of the world’s most polluted countries. In Yale’s Environmental Performance Index for 2016 and 2017, Kathmandu ranked as the third and fifth most polluted city. It charted new heights when it ranked the worst in 2018.

It is more likely Kathmandu will return to its former normalcy as soon as the hustle-bustle of the valley resumes, a matter of serious concern for several other reasons. Here is why.

Pollution: Global overview, local reality

In 2017, Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health, a study by Global Alliance on Health and Pollution in collaboration with Lancet Commission, detailed some alarming findings about pollution.

The study confirmed that pollution is the largest environmental cause of diseases and premature death in the world today, inflicting an estimated 9 million premature deaths in 2015 alone.

“Those deaths were 16% of all deaths worldwide — three times more deaths than caused by AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria combined and 15 times more than from all wars and other forms of violence.”

The commission also pointed out that “one out of four deaths in the most severely affected countries is caused by pollution-related disease while nearly 92% of pollution-related deaths occurred in low-income and middle-income countries.”

The ‘unliveable’ Kathmandu

Nepal is among those low- and middle-income countries where pollution has worsened over the past few decades, with the problem particularly concentrated in the Kathmandu Valley

A near absolute lack of urban planning is one of the underlying causes. Rapid population growth in contrast to its underdeveloped carrying capacity, haphazard infrastructure development, vehicle congestion and toxic emissions from staggering increase in private vehicles have exacerbated the crisis.

At such rate and style of development, millions of Kathmandu residents are compelled to breathe an insalubrious air that constitutes more than oxygen. Dust and smoke, germs, toxic gases and even traces of lead have been discovered in Kathmandu’s air, exposing its public to severe health hazards.

Respiratory ailments, sore throats and inflamed eyes have become public’s daily struggle. In casual conversations and on social media, the Valley is sometimes described as a ‘gas chamber’ as residents endure the debilitating effects of the air they breathe.

In the neighbouring Indian capital city Delhi, the situation is even worse. Few months back, the central government declared health emergency as air toxicity soared. Visuals of a dystopian-reminiscent Delhi where its mask-bound citizens were choking under its smog-clogged atmosphere made headlines around the world.

Kathmandu could soon face a similar fate if it fails to get its act together. Situations can turn ugly for Kathmandu anytime whose pollution is both air and water-borne, while its disaster coping mechanisms, including governance and infrastructure, are highly underdeveloped.

With the extent of pollution, public health is at grave stake, but it isn’t the only distress to worry about. Pollution is also a negative economic externality, imposing long-term costs that may not be immediately apparent but can be far more damaging than we imagine.

Kathmandu’s pollution and discussion on wealth

A 2012 study by economist Naveen Adhikari of Tribhuvan University, using projected population data for 2009, estimated that reducing air pollution to safe levels would generate an annual monetary benefit of US$4.37 million for the populations of Kathmandu and Lalitpur. This included an estimated annual economic health benefit of US$3.56 million.

Since then, the valley’s population, its living costs and the intensity of the pollution have all increased. With ongoing construction projects being executed haphazardly and more projects in the pipeline, for instance ring road and underpass road constructions, Kathmandu's pollution is likely to persist and potentially worsen.

As both blue and white-collar workers are exposed to pollution, productivity and income suffer. For a society to grow economically, its workforce is expected to be productive, which declines when they or their loved ones face poor health conditions.

With low per capita income and weak social safety nets, access to comprehensive health insurance remains limited. Unexpected and emergency healthcare expenditure, thus, turns out into reduced wellbeing as availing medical services, both private or public, are neither easy nor economical.

Highlighting the economic costs of pollution, the Lancet Report estimated that air pollution caused US$4.6 trillion in annual welfare losses worldwide. Nepal, meanwhile, suffered an estimated US$1.7 billion in welfare losses, equivalent to 8.22% of its gross national product (GNP). Productivity losses were also estimated at 0.6% to 0.8% of GDP.

Another study by the World Bank and Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, an independent global health research centre shows that premature deaths caused by air pollution cost the global economy about US$ 225 billion in lost labour income in 2013. In 2012, the World Health Organisation (WHO) released country-level data revealing that 9,943 Nepalis lost their lives to outdoor air pollution, with 36 deaths per 100,000 population.

On top of these clear losses, there is more to this economic phenomenon.

The proliferation of air pollutants in Kathmandu, coupled with the lack of a reliable public transport system, may be among the key factors driving individuals to own private vehicles. According to Department of Transport Management, 3.1 million motor vehicles are registered in Nepal. It is estimated that around 200,000 four-wheelers and 800,000 two-wheelers ply valley roads on a daily basis.

This collective consumer behaviour, which has contributed to the growing use of private vehicles, results in greater fossil-fuel consumption.  Every additional vehicle and every litre of fuel burned contribute to pollution, environmental degradation, and pressure on Nepal’s current account. Nepal has historically relied heavily on imports of two- and four-wheelers, as well as transportation fuels.

According to World Bank data, fuel imports alone account for more than 15% of Nepal’s merchandise imports.

The government’s role in perpetuating this vicious cycle is evident. It earns substantial revenue from vehicle imports, sales, and use, while banks facilitate private vehicle ownership through accessible financing.

Ultimately, however, citizens bear much of the cost. Household savings are diverted towards vehicle purchases, fuel, and maintenance, reducing the resources available for investment and other productive uses, while the collected taxes have clearly done little to improve air quality

Moreover, millions of lives are intertwined with the Kathmandu Valley because it remains the country’s principal economic, educational, and administrative centre. This has made Kathmandu a relatively young society, attracting the population that will drive its present and future economy. Yet young people who move to the Valley for education, employment, and other opportunities are forced to live with potentially lasting health consequences.

There is also an increased risk of losing more of educated and skilled workers to overseas cities that provide better quality of life. Experts have identified the Valley’s deteriorating living conditions as an important factor pushing Nepalis towards overseas destinations, contributing to the country’s brain and labour drain.

A curse on tourism?

Although Kathmandu is admired as one of the top tourism destinations, the Himalayas’ snow-capped facade can’t conceal the valley’s environmental degradation. Although the Visit Nepal 2020 campaign was cut short by the coronavirus pandemic, Kathmandu remains a central gateway for international visitors and is likely to retain that role for the foreseeable future. 

It is not difficult to imagine the impression Kathmandu will leave on visitors if its pollution crisis persists. How can tourism businesses thrive when the city’s aesthetic appeal is diminished and sightseeing itself may expose visitors to health risks?

Tourism growth and its associated economic benefits might have been greater in the past had pollution been less severe. For instance, available data indicate that arrivals of Japanese tourists, often regarded as high-spending visitors with an interest in heritage sites and cleanliness, stagnated over the 15-year period examined. The number of Japanese arrivals, which stood at 27,412 in 2003, remained relatively flat through 2017.

The overlap between this stagnant trend and the period during which pollution intensified in the Kathmandu Valley is noteworthy, although it does not, by itself, establish a causal relationship.

In the post-Corona period, it is highly likely that tourism will be marked by heightened concerns and sensitivity around hygiene, environmental quality and pollution levels in the destination cities.

Bagmati River: A symbol of Kathmandu’s depravity

If anything should fill Kathmandu’s residents with shame and spur them into action, it is the present condition of the Bagmati River. The once enthralling Bagmati, a source of life and spiritual significance, has today become a symbol of human folly and the pursuit of wealth at the expense of environmental wellbeing. 

Bagmati, a river system with tributaries and sub-tributaries streaming across the valley, is still a sparkling stream at its source at Shivapuri hill. But at the base where humans are densely populated, the river is diluted with sewage and solid wastes and smells utterly foul. It is suitable neither for drinking nor irrigation or recreational purposes while any form of aquatic life has become impossible.

The river has also narrowed considerably because of encroachment by roads and settlements, while urban development has sealed many of the underground recharge areas that sustain the Valley’s water system. At the moment, only high discharge during monsoon seems to instil some life in this dead river.

The degradation, pollution, and depletion of the Bagmati offer a striking illustration of the economic losses associated with environmental mismanagement.

Firstly, valley residents have faced a chronic water crisis that necessitated a costly intervention in the form of Melamchi Water Supply Project. The 464-million-dollar project (the costs was later revised to US$ 317.3 million with a due date of 2013) was announced some two decades back with a vision to supply drinking water to the city residents of Kathmandu. Shocking as it may sound, after two decades of project initiation, it is yet to complete and has rather turned into a financial liability with frequent cost overrun and numerous scandals to its credit.

Second, once a natural resource is depleted, restoring it can be an enormous undertaking. Some resources take decades or centuries to recover, while others require substantial financial investment and sustained effort. The Bagmati faces both challenges.

At present, a High-Powered Committee for Integrated Development of Bagmati Civilisation is responsible for Bagmati’s cleanliness and restoration. The committee came up with the Bagmati Action Plan in 2009 while the degree of its success is quite evident.  

There are several NGOs working with similar goals. A mega-cleaning campaign, which started in 2013, is also in effect. According to media reports, volunteers have contributed relentless days of work and extracted around 20,000 metric tons of waste from the rivers by May 2018 which continues till date.

Unless tangible measures, such as complete overhaul of sewage system, high penalties on polluters, erection of wastewater treatment plants and policies that overturn industrial and household waste management are fully put in place, any noble effort will only prove to be a waste of opportunity cost. The high-powered-committee is working on many of these areas, but timely project implementation is like an impossible task in Nepal.

In contrast, cleanliness alone won’t assure Bagmati’s restoration. Bagmati represents many other elements of civilisation which are irreparably damaged by the pollution.

Cultural assets and distinction have deteriorated to the point of immense cultural loss. Religious, cultural and heritage sites, located at the riverbank, such as Pashupatinath temple, Shobha Bhagwati temple, Indrayani temple, Kankeshwori, Ram Mandir, Tankeshwori and other important shrines and cremation sites are losing their intrinsic value due to unchecked river pollution. Earlier, these riverbank sites were stopovers for annual Bagmati pilgrimage which no longer happens now.

Different era of Kathmandu’s civilisation like the Lichchhavi and Malla thrived around the river system that gave them the means of existence and an identity of Bagmati Civilisation. Agriculture, irrigation, drinking water and cultural practices like cremation, homage for the dead ones (Sraddha) and salvation were all linked with the Bagmati river system. Rivers were revered back then, but that civilisation, which continued for a long period until the current urban sprawl started, has disappeared now.

Restoring cultural values, reclaiming encroached riverbanks, and replenishing the watersheds on which the Bagmati depends, all increasingly sealed beneath concrete, are now formidable challenges.

Nevertheless, meaningful improvements remain possible. These include cleaning the existing river, developing riverside pathways and green spaces, reconnecting cultural sites, and introducing other initiatives that restore the river’s ecological and social functions.

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Even a partial revival of the Bagmati’s former significance could generate substantial cultural, health, tourism, and economic benefits. According to a 2015 study on River Thames in London by Oxford Economics, an economic research and consulting firm, “People walk or cycle on the Thames towpath almost a million times a year and participate in the river sport which has resulted into economic benefits in form of foregone treatment costs, reduced absenteeism and greater productivity at work”.

Thirdly, Bagmati’s mistreatment has led to waste of many opportunities of economic gains. The River Thames, the longest river in the England, is a personification of how a river should be treated and managed and how an ingenious engineering of a river system could change the face of areas that it flows through.

The whole of London draws great economic benefits from Thames. It is a drinking water-source for Londoners and provides platform for water transportation services and several recreational water activities like boating, rowing, swimming, kayaking and canoeing. Properties alongside the river sell at premium rates generating additional revenues for its national coffer.

According to the Oxford Economics study, some 4.7 million people visit Thames or maritime-related attractions. The tourism industry in wards adjacent to the River Thames employs around 99,000 people, producing an estimated gross value addition of £2.4 billion to the GDP.

One doesn’t have to go that far to realise how water bodies help generate economic benefits. The Phewa Lake in Pokhara is a prime example. Despite facing encroachment risks, it is managed and preserved relatively better and one of the preferred locations for businesses and investments.

Summing up

What Kathmandu valley requires is a concerted approach with a clear plan and strong execution commitments from its municipal, metropolitan and authorised executives.

Yet prolonged delays in completion of any project or initiatives, like expanding bus network and remodeling it into electric network or procuring few sets of street cleaning equipment are clear evidences that authorities are ignorant, out of touch with what is needed and incompetent to provide any form of respite from the lethal blight of pollution.

The level of inaction also contradicts the rhetoric of prosperity that the current government has promoted since its arrival into power, and an indication how prosperity is (mis)understood by those at the top.

Quite a reverse, extractive policies such as pollution tax is rather considered as the appropriate policy response, while local governments continue to hike taxes to finance their new administrative structures without considering the public welfare and confidence.

Despite the growing discontent about how citizens are taxed left, right and centre, how it is misutilised and how public wellbeing is blatantly ignored, citizens have continued to show remarkable resilience. It will be wrong to assume that it won’t explode any sooner.

It is time the governments change the way their cities are run, at least for their own sake.

((All photographs accompanying this article were taken by Sabin Jung Pande)