उद्धार न्यूज |
मङ्लबार, बैशाख ४, २०८१
Nepal is a landlocked country surrounded by India in the South, East and West and China in the North. It is spread in the area of 1,47,516 square kilometer. While 28.75 percent of the land is arable, the rest 71.25 is already covered by mountains, forests and rivers.
It is blessed with the world’s highest peak, Mount Everest which is situated in the northern part known as Himalayas. It is the sacred land where the Goddess Janaki and the Lord Buddha were born and which is the center of religious belief for the Hindus and Buddhists all over the world. It is well endowed with the natural resources. It is the second richest water resources counry of the world ( i.e, after Brazil ) possessing the hydroelectric potentiality of around 88 thousand M.W. However, its natural resources are abundantly unutilized due to the capital shortages and political instability in the country. Nepal’s population is estimated to be 29.14 million.
The working-age population between 15 – 64 years of age is18.6 million.Of them, around 7.6 million labour force are in the organized and unorganized sectors in the domestic job market, 6 million in the international job market including India and the rest 5 million are completely jobless. While around 1 million migrant workers are estimated to return home due to Covid-19 and the global economic slowdown, over 400 thousand young people are estimated to enter the labour force every year.
Eventually, the problems that the Nepalese people have been facing for long are poverty, unemployment, disguised unemployment, low income, low saving, low investment and so on. The migrant workers’ remittance is over NRs. 800 billion per annum. It contributes over 30 percent to the GDP. However, the national economy has been stagnant due to an excessive increase in the international trade deficit resulting from an excessive increase in imports as against an abundant decrease in export since the labour migration for foreign employment. Thus, the government’s decision to send the labour force abroad for seeking the job opportunities is neither an appropriate nor a permanent solution to the perennial unemployment problem. Their latent potentiality needs to be fully utilized in harnessing the domestic natural resources to solve the unemployment problem and give momentum to the economic development of the country. Hence, the government is required to maintain the peace and tranquillity in the country, develop the infrastructure, provide the vocational education, develop the entrepreneurial skill, execute the self-employment program effectively, modernize and commercialize agriculture, attract the foreign investment in the productive sector and industrialize the economy.
In particular, it needs to promote the agro-based and the tourism industries. The small and cottage industries need to be encouraged and protected properly. Last but not the least, it needs to control the growing population.
