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
