By Pushpa Raj Pradhan
The country has been locked down since 24 March. The government is in a mood to further prolong this lockdown. The people are staying at home and there are very little economic activities. Due to the lack of necessary preparation by the government, the market and distribution system have been seriously affected.
India has decided to prolong such a lockdown and thus the Nepal government has also planned the same. Meanwhile, our chief ministers and also WHO officials have prescribed to prolong the lockdown period to prevent and control the corona virus pandemic.
Due to the ineffective management of the government shortage of life-saving and emergency medicines has been witnessed. Patients suffering from different serious diseases are unable to get medical service as well as medicines they have to consume. The government has not been able to distribute relief package to the people managing two time meals by doing labour works. Farmers are unable to work in their farm land. The nation’s economic activities have virtually halted.
If such a situation is prolonged, the country’s economy may face a serious crisis. Therefore, the government should immediately take necessary decisions to energize economic activities by introducing partial lockdown.
Total lockdown or scientific lockdown?
It has already been 22 days that the people have been staying at home. It has become clear that the disease has not been spread in all the local bodies and even in some districts. Now, the government has to separate the local bodies and districts infected and non-infected with the coronavirus pandemic and allow people to start their economic activities with full necessary precaution within the boundary of the local bodies. At least, such a provision would help supporting those poor people to manage their meals as well as injecting economic activities including agricultural activities.
If one entire district is coronavirus free, the government should lift the lockdown within the district boundary. So far, outsiders should not be allowed to enter in the district and if anybody enters, he or she should compulsorily stay at quarantine for a minimum of two weeks.
Mainly, cities and villages bordered with India are under serious threat of the corona virus infection. Therefore, entry should be closed for the time being. Presence of security personnel has to be increased in borders with India and if anybody enters into Nepali territory, they have to compulsorily stay in quarantine for two weeks.
Resurrect the economy:
The government, without any delay, should announce relief packages for all affected economic organs. Proper monitory policy should be introduced, accordingly, it has to revise the entire taxation policy to get out from the global economic crisis.
Imports of all items, except essential goods have to be discouraged. Imports of luxury items have to be suspended. Likewise, the government should cut down unnecessary expenditure, political appointments such as appointment of aides of the PM and ministers etc have to be suspended.
Even the MPs are lauding to scrap MP’s special fund worth 60 million rupees for each PM. The government, without any delay, should divert the MP’s special fund to coronavirus relief fund.
Very soon, a large number of youths who have lost their jobs abroad, are returning home. The government should prepare to provide them jobs. The government, by developing a strong mechanism of providing loans by producing citizenship certificate and educational certificates to start their business that they have learnt in foreign countries, should manage bank loans for them. Likewise, the government should subsidize farmers by providing them fertilizers on time at subsidized price, providing agriculture equipment and giving knowledge that which farming is better form in which area.
Make in Nepal campaign:
If we cannot innovate something ourselves, it is rather good to copy from outside also. No need to go far away, let our leaders copy the Indian economic policy of “Make in India”. Mahabir Pun’s group is found producing PPEs and busy in maintenance of ventilators. Some youths are found inventing ventilators. The only thing is that the government should encourage their efforts. Firstly, we have to make efforts to substitute imports with locally invented items. We should move forward in declaring Nepal self reliant in many areas, including in agriculture.
Meanwhile, the government should give up the idea of gaining revenue from imports of petro-products and vehicles. It should encourage the use of locally assembled e-vehicles consuming electricity produced within the country. It should subsidize on use of electricity for cooking and industries as well.
Already US dollar has become expensive. For one unit of US$, one will have to pay 123 rupees. This will make foreign goods more expensive. On the other hand, due to the coronavirus impact, hundreds of thousands of Nepali youths are going to lose employment causing a landslide in remittance revenue for the country. Tourism industry cannot flourish at least for one year. As the developed countries have also faced serious economic problems, it will lead to a decline in foreign direct investment. These are the indications that we may not have enough foreign currency reserve to procure foreign goods.
Therefore, the government should practice to cut down its expenses in all sectors to keep alive our economic activities.
Reproduced from People’s Review
