Believe it or not, the King of Nepal enjoyed all the perks and privileges enjoyed by the monarchy. By this month he may lose the throne, when the newly elected assembly holds its meeting. By then he will be a commoner, tasting life as a Nepalese, without any fringes or benefit. But look at the mess he is going to leave behind:
- 1 million in unpaid bills for water,electricity and telephone
- Nepal NRS 1 million for electricity just for a month even though the Royal Family, was not staying in the palace
- stopped paying electricity bills from the time the King seized power in 2005
- Mobile for the King alone, NRS 1 million
- 24 hours electricity supply, to the palace, when the people suffer interrupted power supplies including industries
- own sub-station for palace
- 3 more places no utility bills paid
- relatives don’t pay bills as well
- cases of murder and manslaughter against the members of the royalty
Against this, is the background of Nepal:
Nepal is among the poorest and least developed countries in the world with almost one-third of its population living below the poverty line. Agriculture is the mainstay of the economy, providing a livelihood for three-fourths of the population and accounting for 38% of GDP. Industrial activity mainly involves the processing of agricultural produce including jute, sugarcane, tobacco, and grain. Security concerns relating to the Maoist conflict have led to a decrease in tourism, a key source of foreign exchange. Nepal has considerable scope for exploiting its potential in hydropower and tourism, areas of recent foreign investment interest. Prospects for foreign trade or investment in other sectors will remain poor, however, because of the small size of the economy, its technological backwardness, its remoteness, its landlocked geographic location, its civil strife, and its susceptibility to natural disaster.
So how do you think the people of Nepal going to treat Gyanendra, his family and his relatives. One obvious solution, send them to the fields to work until all the debts are paid - knowing Nepal is an agricultural land. But then the royalty must have stacked up enough money elsewhere, and will continue to live as royals. Royalty is not a license to spend and spend, uncaring for the needs of the people, and sometimes I wonder why royalty when they don’t think of the people. They are there to rule or whatever because of the people. They can’t rule an empty land.
On the verge of being unseated from the throne from where his forefathers ruled Nepal for over two centuries, Nepal’s cornered King Gyanendra has received another rude shock - from his utility bills.
The royal family, who has been asked by the former Maoist guerrillas to quit the royal palace in three weeks’ time, owe the state nearly NRS75 million (over $1 million) over their electricity, water and phone bills, a report said.
The Narayanhity royal palace - that is likely to be turned into a museum once the Maoists form the government - owes the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) over NRS47 million for power bills.
Last month alone, the palace ran up a power bill of over NRS1 million though the king and his queen Komal spent long periods in their summer resort in Nagarjuna forest on the outskirts of Kathmandu valley, the Naya Patrika daily reported Sunday.
Citing unnamed sources in the NEA, the tabloid said the palace stopped paying its electricity dues in 2005, the year the king seized absolute power with the help of the army and triggered a national uprising that led to the downfall of the royal family the following year.
Despite the king keeping a studied silence on the developments following a historic election last month that gave victory to his bete noir, the Maoists, the phones in the palace have been busy, especially the king’s mobile telephone.
According to sources in Nepal Telecom, the state-run telephone agency, the king owes it over NRS 10 million while his mobile phone bill alone accounts for more than NRS 1 million.
Though Nepal has till last month been reeling under an acute power crunch that forced the NEA to impose a weekly 42-hour power outage in the country and led to the closure of dozens of industries, the royal family, despite defaulting on their utility bills, receive uninterrupted power supplies.
The NEA runs a substation with 11 employees inside the palace to ensure round-the-clock supply.
Though the state agencies sent letters to the palace repeatedly asking for payment, the letters were stonily ignored, the daily said.
Besides the royal palace in Kathmandu, the dynasty has also not paid utility bills run up by three more palaces in Hetauda, Pokhara and Nagarjuna, the report added.
Living under the palace’s patronage, other relatives have also disdained to pay their power bills, it added.
They include the king’s sister Princess Shobha, whose husband was earlier blacklisted for not paying back bank loans, and two of his nieces, Princess Dilasha and Sitashma.
Earlier this year, an investigation found that the king’s son, Crown Prince Paras, had misappropriated funds from a nature fund and carted away vehicles and a computer owned by it to his own residence for personal use.
Though Nepal’s parliament proclaimed the country a republic last year and said prior to that that the royal family no longer enjoyed any legal immunity, the government has yet not been able to make the obdurate royals pay tax or their bills.
Nor has it been able to revive any of the alleged cases of murder and manslaughter involving members of the royal family and their associates.
The drooping fortune of Nepal’s Shah dynasty of kings is expected to get the death blow this month when the newly elected constituent assembly holds its first meeting and formally abolishes monarchy.
