The earthquakes earlier this year pushed a million Nepalis under the World Bank's US $2 a day 'poverty' line. The ongoing Indian blockade, according to Nepal Rastra Bank, will add another million. This sharp increase in poverty, in such a short span of time, puts the country on course to becoming the poorest in the SAARC region (excluding Afghanistan). Currently, the South Asian Razzies for poverty goes to Bangladesh, which, according to the World Bank, has 43.3 percent of its people living in 'extreme poverty' (under US $1.25 a day) and a whopping 76.5 percent in 'poverty'. Currently, the corresponding figures for Nepal are 23.7 percent and 56 percent respectively. But if the situation on the border does not soon improve, warns the central bank, Nepal could pip Bangladesh as the poorest country in the region in about a year's time. Agriculture, industries and service sectors have all been hit hard by the blockade; around a million (mostly menial) jobs have been lost. Already 2,200 industries in the Tarai belt have been forced to close down.According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, once prosperous districts like Saptari, Siraha, Rautahat, Bara and Parsa were relegated to the ranks of the poorest districts after the 2007 Madhesh Movement. The ongoing agitation in Madhesh, economists fear, will render these districts poorer still, as hundreds of thousands of people (220,000 and counting) have either lost their jobs or been barred from economic activities in the Tarai region alone. The country's gains, painfully accumulated over the years, are being reversed in a jiffy. The last time the country was ranked the poorest in the SAARC region was back in 1998. In 1999, Nepal had inched ahead of Bangladesh; by 2008 the proportion of people living under the poverty line in Nepal was less than the corresponding figure for India. This is all the more reason to expedite reconstruction and to settle outstanding constitutional issues at the earliest. The inexplicable delay over the reconstruction authority, we hope, will now end after the tabling of a relevant bill in parliament. Impetus on reconstruction, besides helping provide sturdy shelters to 2.8 million Nepalis rendered homeless by recent earthquakes, will also create new jobs and boost the overall economy.
Likewise, the tabling in parliament of a separate bill on amendments of the new constitution, in line with some of the demands of the Madheshi parties, is encouraging. It shows that the major parties are serious about resolving the protracted crisis in Tarai-Madhesh. But the Madhesh-based parties, instead of welcoming this progress on the institutionalization of proportional representation and delineation of electoral constituencies on population basis—as they had been demanding all along—are now adamant that there will be no breakthrough unless province boundaries are also immediately settled. They must be more flexible. Political negotiations will be meaningless if one side simply refuses to compromise. As the central bank has indicated, Nepal is already in dire straits. Our politicians should show more sagacity to check this fast descent of the country into South Asia's basket case.
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