Scary situation

The Himalayan Times

12 March 2020

Scary situation

Nepal and its people use to suffer heavily from natural calamities, especially during the monsoon. The Tarai gets heavily flooded, displacing thousands of people and destroying agricultural products. Likewise, many people living in the hills lose their homes in land-slides. Such damages caused by natural disasters, directly or indirectly affect the national economy. Now, the spread of the deadly COVID-19 around the globe has threatened both human lives and the national economy.

We were lucky, none of the Nepalis evacuated a few days ago from China were infected with COVID-19. Until today, Nepal is safe. However, news has started flowing in about Nepalis testing positive in other countries “Two Nepalis test positive for coronavirus in UAE” (THT, March 27, Page 1). Let us still hope that Nepalis residing in other infected countries such as the UK, France, Italy and USA will be safe from this deadly virus. And, I hope that our government is now fully prepared to handle this scary situation. It was encouraging, albeit late, to know that the government has finally stopped issuing visa on-arrival to citizens of the virus-hit eight countries.

Our national economy is heavily dependent on remittance mainly flowing in from the Gulf countries. Qatar, one of the main labour market destinations where more than 400,000 migrant workers are engaged in various sectors, has decided to ban arrivals of Nepali migrant workers. As per the central bank, Nepal received Rs. 53.93 billion which is 17.7 per cent of the total remittance of Rs. 304.97 billion in the first four months from Qatar. If the other gulf countries follow Qatar’s decision, it will be a heavy financial loss for Nepal.

Rai Biren Bnagdel

Maharajgunj