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Building Boom Choking Kathmandu
***Frenetic construction activity in Nepal's capital city is destroying the fragile ecosystem of the Himalayan state. Binod Bhattarai of IPS reports.***
Nepal's fragile mountain ecosystem has paid dearly for the building boom in this capital city As new hotels, commercial complexes and residential blocks sprout up in Kathmandu, brick kilns that have mushroomed to keep pace with the construction are burning the topsoil devouring huge mounds of firewood and polluting the clean mountain air
In winter this urban sprawl where temperature drop to three degrees centigrade is shrouded in smog. Scientists explain it is largely smoke from kilns trapped In the high valley by the cold wind sweeping down from the surrounding snow-clad peaks.
The temperature inversion is choking this city's over one million people. Health workers say many of Kathmandu s poor suffer from chronic chest ailments. made worse by the bit ter cold as the sun rarely penetrates the polluted mist.
A recent study by the Mrigendra Medical Trust revealed an alarmingly high concentration of carbon in the air In the valley
Suresh Raj Chaiise of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) says the fog In the valley has been measured between 100 to 200 metres by meteorologists.
The smoking chimneys (of kilns) are creating problems since most of them do not rise above the smog which means that the particles In the smoke
are not well dispersed and remain tn the fog." he explains.
According to Nepal's rural and cottage industries department. there are roughly 250 brick factories in Kathmandu Valley. The government has. however, not been able to keep track of the large numbers of chimney less hearths tn operation.
The brick kilns are also destroying the topsoil in this fertile valley which, according to popular legend, was once a lake that was drained by a saint. Manjushrec.
Chaiise is convinced that the kilns which have sprouted on the floor of the bowl-shaped valley over the past few years, was "roasting forever" the top-soil.
A Nepali energy economist. Suresh Prasad Sharma, has calculated that two million tonnes of topsoil are used to bake bricks every season.
A source of living for many poor peasants, a moderately large kiln employs some 400 people who dig the soil, mix in water and press the earth into moulds which are sun-dried before being fired in furnaces.
A single-shaft kiln produces 1.6 million bricks during the brick-making season which stretches September to late M»y
Every season, kilns this size consume 22 truckloads of firewood. 13 truckloads of coal Imported from neighbouring India, and 20 truckloads of lignite mined locally.
Environmentalists say the frenetic construction activity tn the valley s wiping out
Nepal's forest wealth already under tremendous pressure from a rapidly growing population.
Besides, the level of dangerous polluting gases, particu larly sulphur dioxide, has increased, threatening Nepal's vulnerable Himalayan ecosystem with acid rain, they add.
The Mrigendra Medical Trust report has discovered that the overall concentration of trace elements — sulphates, nitrates and carbon — in the valley is comparable to those in the world's industrial cities.
Three years ago. the gov emnlent made brick kilns an unlicensed trade. The operation was classified a rural industry and encouraged as a means to generate rural employment
Officials say the number of kilns in the Kathmandu Valley quadrupled in two years after deregulation.
Almost overnight private entrepreneurs began Invading the countryside to lease uncultivated land to set up factories.
Today under pressure from rapid urbanisation and farmlands shrink, the once fertile valley which exported grains and vegetables to other parts of Nepal now survives on imports.
Peasants complain of low yields on farms that a decade ago produced abundantly even without chemical fertilisers.
With the demand for bricks only growing, planners will have to take drastic measures to resuscitate the valley