Documents

Case Study No. 1:
Social and Environmental Implication in Melamchi Water Supply Project funded by Asian Development Bank

(1) Resettlement Policy
The resettlement policy is too liberal. Compensation for any house to be acquired includes – full cost of the building at present rate, no depreciation applied, the owner keep all material after demolition of house, displacement allowance equivalent to 270 days of the minimum wage labour rate of the district comes about Rs 38,000. Moreover, these people get priority in training. The house owner constructs new house few feet away from demolished house, using construction material from demolished house with labour cost covered by displacement allowance. As such, the house owner could pocket all the compensation money for almost free.

Additionally, some of the beneficiaries, who built their houses within the right of way in case of existing road, are illegal squatters. As a result, people tend to build some huts etc. when they come to know that there is going to be development activities of some form. Hence the present resettlement policy has encouraged the people to unnecessarily look for compensation.

Such provision has benefited house owners near the road corridor, whereas others felt that the affected families are unnecessarily provided more facilities. As a consequence, nearby families are pressing the Project to acquire their houses as well so that they also could benefit. Most of these house owners are relatively better off, so the ADB provision has benefited the rich people as compared to poorer ones who live away from the road corridor. The disadvantaged people are thus encouraged to create problem to the Project as road blockade etc. so as to benefit from the project.

The communities have firm belief that all their demand would be fulfilled by the Project if they obstruct the project activities. They are demanding for:

• compensation for damages to the houses, which are mostly existing cracks in walls, along the road corridor. They claim that these crack were induced due to passage of heavy vehicle on the road.

• compensation for land where road was constructed by Department of Roads some 10-15 years back.

• compensation for irrigation canals which is not in operation since long time back due to wash out of intake and canal by flood. They argue that the road construction activity has triggered the flood and subsequent wash out, etc.

• compensation for water mills, which are slowly being replaced with electricity driven rice mills

• construction of facilities like water supply, canals,

There is provision of employing at least 30% of labour from the local community. It is being applied irrespective of the skill level of those people.

(2) Environment Plan
The Environmental Plan has restricted any side casting of excavated material along the road. The contractor is forced to carry all the excavated material to 2-3 km to the spoil tip, adequately compact the dumped material at the spoil tip, undertake soil erosion protective measure at the spoil tip, etc. All these additional activities have escalated the unit cost of excavation and per km cost of Melamchi Adit Access Road is highest in the country, Japanese Dhulikhel-Sindhuli Road could be an exception.

Provision for health facilities, water quality and sanitation facilities to be supplied to the labour, restriction on use of fire wood by the labour, etc are not easy to be complied.


Case Study No. 2:
Government of Nepal (GON)’s Contract with FAO for Technical Assistance to “Community Livestock Development Project”, CLDP.

Government of Nepal has requested to submit EOI from International Consulting Firms in association with National Consulting Firm for Community Livestock Development Project financed by Asian Development Bank (ADB). Several International Consulting firms in association with domestic firms have submitted EOI. To every one’s dismay and surprise, the Government of Nepal through a notice published in the local paper “The Himalayan”, invited “The Food and Agriculture Organization” of United Nation (FAO) to provide Technical Assistance to GON/Asian Development Bank (ADB) supported Community Livestock Development Project (CLDP). In the same paper, FAO has published notices inviting application from suitably qualified Individuals for 7 International positions including Team Leader and for 18 national experts including Deputy Team Leader.

It is matter of concern that without following any of ADB Norms and Guidelines for the procurement of the Consultants, GON has awarded FAO the Contract, when the domestic consulting industry is very much suffering from the lack of job in the market.

The other important concerns are:

• What guarantee is there that FAO will be able to recruit qualified experts ?. What will be the fate of the project, if recruitment of the qualified expert are delayed and the implementation of the project then, who is to blame ?

It has been observed that during the selection of FAO, no competition has taken place. It is against GON rules and ADB guidelines for selection of Consultant.
Such bad practices should be stopped totally in future and consultant must be procured following the Guidelines of ADB in a healthy and competitive manner.

Case Study No. 3:

Decentralised Rural Infrastructure and Livelihood Project (DRILP)

In Decentralised Rural Infrastructure and Livelihood Project (DIRLP) proposed to be funded by ADB also, consultants were invited to submit their EOI for Project Management Services. It was combination of International (Lead) and Domestic Consultants. The EOIs were submitted, but without any notice to consultants, the project was awarded to DRSP Consultants through SDC as, during the process of shortlist, Government of Nepal requested Swiss Government to provide Technical Assistance (TA) grant for Project Management Services. And the Swiss Government agreed to provide the grant but with the grant they directly appointed SDC to provide the requisite services. No local consulting organisation was required to be affiliated to such an assignment where considerable local inputs of different local professionals were required besides international inputs. The consultants who participated in the EOI were not even informed on this new modalities.

Agencies like FAO and SDC are supposed to strengthen the domestic consulting industry by taking them as partners in the development works and not compete with them and take away jobs in the local market.

The concerns are like in Case Study No. 2 above and it is hoped that such practices are not repeated in future

(1) Absence of Technical / Social/ Administration Support Staff in the Project
In ADB funded Community Water Supply Project, Consultant is performing as a Management Consultant for the implementation of rural water supply and sanitation project in western/far western region in about 20 districts. But during the project preparation, for such kind of scattered job, not a single support staff was foreseen in TOR. Hand-full of professional staffs require technical/social/administrative support staff to collect data from field / secondary sources and to liasion with communities and provide assistance to them. Administrative/secretarial support at management consultant’s office is also required. The consultant can not fully depend on Client’s secretarial staff, as even an office helper from client’s side think that he is the employer.

Conclusion:
Small amount of money spent in the input of support staff would greatly enhance in the overall performance of the Consultant vis-a-vis the Project.

(2) Inadequate input of Professional Staff.
In Small Town Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Project, in the team of Engineering Design Consultant, one Resident Engineer and one Overseer has to take responsibilities of the whole construction work including Quality Control, which means, in the absence of Engineer due to any reason (sickness, leave etc.), the Overseer will be incharge of the whole water supply and sanitation project. Input of few man-month of an Assistant Resident Engineer would have greatly improve the overall performance of the construction work. Team Leader has negligible input from home office – 10 days per project during 18 months period.

Conclusion:
It is advised that the Client and donor also should consult with other stakeholders, such as SCAEF member before finalizing the inputs. Larger consultations can result in better project design ultimately resulting in the successful implementation of the Project.

(3) Variation Order and Approval
Variations during implementations are essential to refine project benefit as estimated inputs/quantities can never be 100% accurate. But the government officials do not understand it that way. Moreover, FAR has put severe restrictions and is generally understood as punishable act.

Restrictions on variation may result in incomplete project outputs – as even the critical items which make the project relatively more sustainable – may have to be left incomplete there by shortening the life of the infrastructure.

ADB guideline on variation is silent. Hence, the executing agencies tend to follow GON regulation which limits variation. Variation in the Project must be looked in terms of its justified need and should be tied up with the availability of funds rather than percentage increase in cost. At present, the following provisions are made in FAR of GoN.

• 15% in department level with approval from the committee in Ministry Level

• 25% in the ministerial level

• On New Items and Design Specification changes too, GON regulation requires project authority (the Project Manager) to get it same approval from the ministerial level.

Though FIDIC allows the Engineer to issue variation order only with the limitation on availability of total funds, the authority of Engineer is restricted by FAR as mentioned above. Therefore, responsibility of approving variation should lie with the project management which is the best judge of need for variation.

Restrictive clause related to 15% to 25% variation should totally be deleted to get the best from the investment in infrastructure or sufficient time and input should be given during detailed design phase.

It should be understood that Variation Orders are required to be issued because of the very short time given for the design phase, implementing project based on feasibility/project preparation study level; no detailed engineering survey and design were carried out before tendering.

For example in RMDP Project time allocated for survey and design of 400 km of new and upgrading roads was only 3 months and the tenders were floated based project preparation study that has resulted remarkable variation in quantity during construction.

(4) Change of Personnel
Change of project personnel is inevitable particularly

• When the contract award decisions are delayed.

• Where the input is intermittent.

• Where the duration of a particular specialist is for a very long period.

• When there is a wide time gap between the completion of design phase and the start of construction, it is very difficult to maintain the original nominee for the assignments, particularly when he/she is a resource person.

Hence change of personnel should be taken as a routine phenomenon and should be facilitated, if the case is genuine.