Kathmandu, Apr. 13
The country was in lockdown when Nepali New Year
2077 begun on April 13, 2020, and it is on the brink of another similar
restriction with the surge in coronavirus cases – 460 infection and five deaths
– as the year concludes on Tuesday.
Confusion and apprehension prevail on the part of
the government as well as in the private sector especially the service sectors
like education, tourism and hospitality even on the eve of the New Year.
Opening school has become a contentious issue with
doctors and large section of guardians suggesting their closure while school
operators are openly voicing for the continuity of physical classes. Tourism
sector was badly hit by the pandemic and this sector lost about 16 per cent of
its annual Gross Domestic Product in the last fiscal year.
Economy
The economic growth witnessed a negative trend with
-1.9 per cent in the last fiscal which is expected to rise to 2.7 per cent this
year. However, this hope is fragile as it could be easily shattered if there is
another lockdown or any sort of restriction in the last three months of the fiscal
year since a major part of the capital budget is mobilised during this period
and development work takes pace.
Meanwhile, in the last nine-months, until Monday,
the government could mobilise only 46.5 per cent of the total annual budget
with only 29.2 per cent capital spending, according to the Financial
Comptroller General's Office.
The pandemic
has significantly affected the materilisation of the foreign investment pledges
made in the Nepal Investment Summit held in March 2019, some weeks before the lockdown
was imposed.
The Investment Board had recently finalised the
feasibility study and Detailed Project Report of four large infrastructure projects
showcased at the summit.
Although the World Bank has revised Nepal's economic
growth to 2.7 per cent this month from its earlier projection of 2.1 per cent
made in January, the fear of the virus contagion had begun to hit the economy.
Education
Education has been one of the worst hit sectors.
While the private schools in the urban areas began to run online classes via
Zoom and Teams applications by June last year, schools in villages were in
dilemma until August with most of the community schools failing to create
connection between the teachers and students.
Poor information technology infrastructure, poor
internet and telephone connection and poor access to technology resulted in no
classes in many community schools across the country. Some schools in villages
tried to run online classes but it couldn't give expected results as many
guardians did not have a smartphone let alone laptops and desktop computers.
The pandemic affected the academic calendars of the
universities and students of Bachelors first year are still waiting for their
final exam routines. In normal situation, the final exams should have been
completed eight months ago.
Although the universities hesitantly readied
themselves for the virtual classes, with some exception, they failed to run
virtual exams. On top of that while the risk of the virus prevailed throughout
the year, universities did not create procedures and infrastructure to conduct
online examination. Education sector's growth shrunk to 3 per cent in 2019/20
from 5.98 per cent in 2018/19.
Politics
The year remained tumultuous due to intra-party rift
in the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP). The largest communist party in
history of Nepal that had command almost a two-thirds majority in the
parliament was in the news throughout the year as the chair of the party Pushpa
Kamal Dahal Prachanda supported by senior leader Madhav Kumar Nepal challenged
the authority and leadership of chair and Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli. As
factionalism reached the grassroot level of the party and Prachanda Nepal
faction took action against Oli, the latter retaliated by dissolving the House
of Representatives on December 20, 2020.
However, the dissolution of the parliament was
immediately challenged at the Supreme Court and in a landmark decision, the SC reinstated
the parliament. In another dramatic development, the court conferred the name
of the NCP on Rishi Ram Kattel, thereby dismissing the three-year old
unification between the CPN-UML and the Maoist Centre.
This decision finally split the NCP into its earlier
form: CPN-UML and CPN-MC. Lately Madhav Nepal faction of the UML is creating
parallel party structures across the country. The party debacle was visible in
the election of the Federation of Nepalese Journalists (FNJ) where candidates
near to UML's Oli and Nepal faction and MC won in 11, 7 and 10 districts
respectively. The year 2078 will continue to witness the widening of the
tensions between the two factions of the UML.
International relations
In an historical attempt, Nepal published a new map
including Kalapani region, Limpiyadhura and Lipulek – which have been occupied
by India for the last six decades – in its territory. Earlier, in November
2019, India published its political map including Nepali territory inside its
international borders. Nepal immediately sent diplomatic note expressing
dissatisfaction over India's unilateral move. But the southern neighbour did
not correct its move, instead it developed a road in Nepali territory of
Kalapani region. Finally, Nepal published a new map of the country including
the India-occupied region in its territory in May last year (in the month of
Jestha).
However, despite prolonged tensions between Nepal
and India, the government cautiously handed the relations and maintained the
economic and social relations with the latter. The publication of the map
created a national unity with all political parties and civil society voicing
support for the move.
The government's diplomacy was particularly
successful in procuring the vaccines against coronavirus. While about 100
countries across the globe have not received single dose of vaccines, Nepal had
inoculated about 1.7 million of its citizens so far and is set to begin the
second dose of the jabs from next week.
Development
This year marked the completion of the long-awaited
Melamchi Water Supply Project which was dreamt for about three decades and was
supposed to be completed by 2008. The national pride project received multiple
glitches and went to through multiple cost and time overrun. However, the
pandemic slowed the progress of other large projects like Upper Tamakoshi
Hydroelectricity Project, Gautam Buddha International Airport, Pokhara
International Airport and many other.
Published in The Rising Nepal daily on April 14, 2021.
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