National Resources: Sand supply, NRDCL and Royal Command.

His Majesty the 4th King took extra- ordinary actions to reserve natural resources for common good of the nation and the people.

Export of timber was banned and later private ownership of national sand deposits was banned.  

Bhutan Logging Corporation was reorganised to form NRDCL and given new mandates.  In addition to timber, the corporation was tasked with supply of sand and stone aggregates at affordable retail prices.

However, NRDCL seems to have failed in all quarters. By design or simply mismanagement, the Stone Crushing Plants seemed to have failed miserably incurring heavy losses and worse it is now revealed that sand supplies were quietly surrendered to few Transport Companies.

There is no uprooting the tentacles of Druk  Monster Corruption Beast. Even the Command of King is subverted. And all this is possible because there is push and pull in the appointment of key management people.

NRDCL seems to be now making an effort to regain sense of national responsibility. I hope the Corporation positions itself to meet both timber and sand supplies at reasonable rate for the benefit of all consumers. And revive the stone aggregate plants to commercial success. NRDCL must have a Board of Directors which is not a total slave to the government's political party interests.

In the very recent tussle between Trucking Companies and NRDCL, the Truck Companies were able to approach the Prime Minister 3 times and even call a Strike ( unheard in Bhutan ) to force their demand to enjoy continuous monopoly of sand supply. This is how powerful private greed overides national interest.  At my individual level, I appealed to Truckers to concentrate on transportation business and not seek monopoly of sand supplies. 

Today, RSTA is powerless in enforcing new taxi rates ( after oil price drop ) in the face of all powerful and politically pampered Taxi Association of Thimphu.  The association got tge government to ban new taxi registration under Thimphu and then went a step further to get the government to ban taxis registered under other Dzongkhags to ply in Thimphu the most lucrative market. 

The nation has also  totally given in to private mine owners. And National Mining Corporation is a toothless Agency both in Management aspiration and mandate.  And very soon it will become a national liability and private Mining Corporations' bonanza.