By P.R. Pradhan
Since 24 March, the country has been locked down and it is going to be continued for further more weeks. All international as well as domestic flights are suspended. Domestic public transportation service has also been suspended to stop coronavirus pandemic in the country.
The total number of corona virus infected people has reached to 82. Nobody has died yet and health condition of those who are undergoing treatment in different hospitals is normal. It is really very good news. Yet, we are not free from the threat of the spread of corona virus pandemic in the country. In Nepal, corona virus is an imported pandemic. Until now, the virus was detected in people who had returned from Wuhan of China, France, Belgium, the United Kingdom, some Gulf countries and immediate neighbour India.
As all international flights are suspended, there is no fear of transmitting the pandemic from any of the third countries except from India. With India, we have open borders and borders are porous and almost open due to lack of presence of Nepali security forces there. Of late, out of a few persons who have arrived from the third countries, the dominating number of the people carrying corona virus are those who have arrived from different parts of India. Although, Nepal-India borders are sealed earlier to the lockdown for more than 45 days, people are entering Nepal from the Indian side through the unofficial and illegal border passes and those people arrived in Nepal after sealing of the borders have been identified with corona virus pandemic. It is a lesson to learn by every Nepalis that to what extent it could be harmful while keeping international borders open. If the government fails to monitor the international borders by increasing the number of security personnel, the ongoing lockdown in the country by stopping all social, religious, educational, economic and other activities will be worthless and the entire nation could pay a heavy price for it. Now, not only temporarily but permanently the international borders have to be regulated, border walls and trenches have to be constructed, passport system should be introduced for travelers from each other’s country.
Therefore, instead of extending the lockdown period any further, the government should deploy more number of security personnel in the Nepal-India borders. If the existing number is not enough, the government has to deploy the Nepal Army personnel too. So that any single person should not be able to enter Nepal without necessary medical check-up and stay in quarantine for a minimum of two weeks. Accordingly, the government should mobilize all local bodies bordering with India. There are five ward members additionally one ward chairman. If the local bodies will mobilize ward members in Nepal-India borders, it will be more effective to locate any new person arriving in the village or town from India. In addition, the government should mobilize the group of volunteers as well as mobilizing grassroots level political party workers by developing coordination with all the political parties in monitoring the cross border trafficking. By doing so, for the time being, we can regulate the international borders by minimizing the spread of corona virus outbreak.
Global spread of the corona virus pandemic has already claimed life of above two hundred fifty thousand lives with the total number of infected persons above 3.66 millions. In India, the latest number of death and infected people are around fifty thousand and mortality of around two thousand.
The rate of pandemic spread in India is alarming. If we fail to control people arriving from India, all efforts that the government has done will be meaningless. Therefore, at any cost, borders have to be sealed in practice. In India, to control the spread of the corona virus pandemic, different states have sealed their borders with other states. Even some states have constructed five fit tall walls and trenches in their state borders to stop trafficking from other states. When inter-state borders needed to be blocked in India, keeping open the Nepal-India international borders is ridicules. Our political leaders and specially the leaders in the government, to avoid negative impacts of open borders, must take a bold decision of closing the Nepal-India borders permanently except from operating some border points for human migration and trade. Construction of wall and trenches along with deployment of increasing number of border security force and construction of permanent border observation posts are essential to stop illegal trafficking, keeping record of the migrated people and safeguarding Nepali soil from encroachment. To trace the number of Nepali people staying in India as well as the number of Indian people in Nepal, Nepal-India borders have to be regulated and passport system has to be introduced without any delay. Moreover, keeping borders open may invite possible attacks in Indian cities by international terrorist groups, Indians need to think seriously on it.
Reproduced from People’s Review
