Biratnagar Jute Mills closed down

Post Report

BIRATNAGAR, Nov 20 - Biratnagar Jute Mills (BJM), the biggest jute mill of the country plagued by frequent strikes, came to a complete closure Monday as it could not buy raw materials.

The Mills used to buy raw materials worth Rs 12 million a month on average, but lately it could not buy raw materials due to a lack of fund as its earning went down as a result of partial operation and frequent strikes.

The Mills was partially operating till Sunday as workers obstructed its operation citing not getting their overdue salary. Over 1,800 blue-collar and 160 white-collar employees of the mills had been staging strikes since a month demanding their overdue pay, Dashain allowance and medical allowance.

The strike was broken after the Chief District Officer held a meeting with the mill management, employees on condition of paying their due amounts before Tihar, but as the Mills failed to pay their due pay, they again went on partial strikes.

Nirmal Kumar Byas, a local businessman, had taken the management of the Mills in contract paying Rs 9.5 million per year to the government. The government has 46 per cent stake in the ailing jute mills.

Byas in a written application to the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies on Tuesday has accused the local administration and board of director of the Mills of not extending any cooperation while a group of workers created uproar and sold goods and manhandled some employees.

He has also requested the government to create an environment so that a tripartite meeting could be held and the problem could be solved.

He says that those workers created chaos even before the deadline of payment of their salaries. He has claimed compensation from the board of directors and the government for the damage caused by the striking workers during the period as the board of directors and the local administration remained indifferent to the incident.

The Mills, which used to operate 24 hours a day, had been running only for 16 hours a day for the past few months due to a lack of raw materials. The closure of the Mills would affect about 2,000 employees and their dependents.

Besides, the closure of the Mills will also affect the revenue that Biratnagar Customs office generates from the import of the raw materials. Likewise, the workers are used by the local businessmen to pass goods from the customs carrying them on handbags, which the porter say are brought for domestic consumption.

ODA records robust growth

Post Report

KATHMANDU, Nov 20 – Despite the shrinking global flow of Official Development Assistance (ODA) and contracting global economy, the inflow of ODA, during the first four months of the current year registered a majestic growth of almost 4 fold as compared to the same period last year.

According to the statistics compiled by the Foreign Aid Coordination Division at Ministry of Finance, the overall flow of ODA into Nepal during the period touched Rs 15.37 billion whereas such figure for the last year was just Rs 4.3 billion.

While analysing the composition of the total ODA received, one of the significant factors is that grant assistance continued to surpass loan assistance. During the period, Nepal received Rs 12.69 billion of grant assistance while the loan assistance amount was only Rs 1.7 billion.

On the project-wise analysis, Melamchi Water Supply Project attracted the heaviest amount of Rs 5.53 billion whereas the project had drawn technical assistance worth just Rs 89.3 million from the government of Norway during the same period last year. Of the total amount received for the project during the period of the current fiscal year, Rs 2.85 billion was received as grant assistance while rest of the amount - Rs 2.68 billion as loans.

The government of Sweden stood as the largest donor for the project, which during the period extended financial cooperation of Rs 1.97 billion followed by the government of Norway with a grant assistance of Rs 1.86 billion. Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and NDF also extended loan assistance of Rs 1.02 billion and Rs 675.9 million for the project.

Similarly, Reduced Fertility and Protected Health Project remained the second largest project that received a grant assistance of Rs 4.48 billion from the US government.

In the like manner, Banepa-Sindhuli Road Project stood as the third largest project to attract ODA that received Rs 2.05 billion grant assistance from the government of Japan. With the grant assistance of Rs 758.5 million and Rs 659.9 million from the US government, Private Sector Participation in Environment Project and Strengthening Governance Project remained the fourth and fifth largest projects on the basis of monetary amount received so far.

On the country-wise manner, USA stood as the largest donor during the period, which extended Rs 5.9 billion for three different projects whereas with Rs 2.07 billion assistance. UK had stood as number one donor during the like period last year.

Similarly, with the extension of Rs 3.2 billion for four various projects, Japan continued to maintain second position during the period. Last year, the Japanese government had extended economic cooperation worth Rs 1.55 billion for five different projects.

In the like manner, the government of Sweden extended ODA worth Rs 1.97 billion to secure third largest donor country while Norway and OPEC fund emerged as the fourth and fifth largest donor countries or agencies, which granted Rs 1.86 billion and Rs 1.02 billion respectively.

Notwithstanding the stagnant financial sector reforms and increasing regular expenditures of the government, the present flow of ODA seems highly encouraging. Donor agencies have been pressing the government to speed up the financial sector reforms. The budget for the current fiscal year, so far, has been estimated to accumulate Rs 30.54 billion of foreign loans and grants to finance the huge mismatch between the total expenditure and internal revenue.

Income of Nepalese affected in Malaysia

By Maina Dhital

KATHMANDU, Nov 20 – The downturn of American economy and the subsequent drop in the Malaysian export to the America has adversely impacted the income of Nepalese employees working in Malaysia.

Ganesh Aryal, Chief of Employment Branch at Labour Department informed The Kathmandu Post that slash in overtime duties at the Malaysian factories due to the slump in exports to USA is the main cause of sliding incomes of Nepalese working there.

"Despite the decline in incomes, not a single Nepali has so far has returned back citing the same reason," he said.

Some one year ago, when the Malaysian government announced Nepal as the human resource country, the flow of Nepali workers into Malaysia has increased heavily. A rough estimation predicts that there are more than 50 thousands of Nepalese workers in Malaysia.

The data of the department shows that in the first three months of the fiscal year 2001/2002, a total of 16015 workers departed for Malaysia.

Companies who send Nepalese labourers to Malaysia say that despite the shrinking incomes in Malaysia, its attraction among the Nepali workers has not been reduced in recent weeks.

Unlike Malaysia, the workers boarding for gulf countries have not been impacted by the present weakening global economy and ongoing Afghan war. The Nepalese Embassy at Saudi Arabia has also informed the Labor Ministry that the Nepali workers in the gulf nations are not affected by the ongoing war.

According to data of National Planning Commission, 300 thousand workers are added to the labour market each year. The unemployment rate has increased to 4.9 percent while 47 percent of the total population is semi-employed.

In the gulf countries alone, more than 5 thousand Nepalese go there for employment monthly. A total of 350 thousand Nepalese are estimated to be in the gulf countries till date.

The data also shows that Nepalese depart to 43 countries for foreign employment. Among them, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia are the top two destinations. According to the department, nearly 30 thousand of Nepalese workers went abroad in the last three months for foreign employment.