Practicability Assessment of Smart Village in the Hilly Region of Nepa

Villages are the backbone of the nation and a smart village means such a village that can provide various services needed in day-to-day life to the villagers effectively and efficiently. The overall objective of this research is to assess the practicability of the smart village in the hilly region of Nepal with a special reference to Sandakpur Rural Municipality. The study covered the locality within Maipokhari and Sulubung village of Sandakpur Rural Municipality. A scheduled questionnaire survey was done with 45 respondents under the pandemic of COVID-19 to find the present status of the health, education, governance, services, water supply, irrigation in the area along with their perception of smart village practicability. From the literature review of the various paper about smart villages throughout the world, some of the characteristics were adopted and these were assessed in the study area. Five points Likert scale was used on ranking smart village feature and Chi-Square test is done to determine the significance of respondent’s opinions for the variables from the collected data followed by benefit-cost ratio, NPV and IRR for economic feasibility. After the analysis of data with the Five-Point Likert Scale, ratings on smart features like Smart Utilization of Resources, Smart Living, Smart Governance, Smart Village Services, Smart Technology, Smart Tourism, and Gender Equity and Women Equity were given as Fair (2.82), Fair (3.02), Fair (2.93), Fair (3.17), Fair (3.2), Good (2.42) and Poor (3.46) respectively. The chisquare test showed that the majority of respondents supported the perspective toward Smart Village features as fair. B/C ratio was found as 4.98 and 2.85 at 6.5% and 10% discount rate, NPV was found as Rs 1,550,474,977 and Rs 715,758,502.7 at 6.5% and 10% discount rate and IRR was found as 18.32 % for 30 year analysis period which assures smart village can be a better option for the sustainable village. Smart villages can only be possible with long-term planning, strategy and investment. With the adoption of features of the smart village, the study area can be converted into a smart village but it may take time to incorporate these features completely. Only with a gradual development of infrastructures and facilities, Maipokhari and Sulubung villages of Sandakpur Rural Municipality and even other villages can be developed as smart village. But the different village has a different characteristic, so the development model of one village could be only a reference for the further analysis of a particular village.Supervised by Assoc. Prof. Anjay Kumar Mishra, Ph.D. A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Construction Managemen