Dying Industries

ONE of the reasons why Nepalese economy has not had a robust growth lies in the underdeveloped state of the industrial sector. Nepal is just too heavily dependent on agriculture, which in turn is greatly dependent on the vagaries of weather. If rains are good, agriculture output increases and that is reflected in the economic growth. Otherwise, economy records messly growth figures. Our economy would not be so tied to the agriculture if adequate attention was paid to the industrial sector over the past decades. But that did not happen and thus the situation. What is alarming is that what few industries Nepal has also run into deep troubles over the recent years. The small and cottage industries, the backbone of the Nepal’s industrial sector, are also severely affected. Mirroring this general decline in industries is the case of Rupandehi a western Terai district. A news piece has it that most of the small and cottage industries in Butwal and Siddharthanagar, the two towns of the district, are on the verge of closure. According to the small and cottage industries office in the district, even the industries that are somehow operating are not running in their full capacity. An indication of the seriousness is the fact that out of the total 1442 industries registered in Butwal, 760 are in operation while 682 have already been closed down. What brought this about? The litany of woes is long and grim. Lack of working capital and regular supply of raw materials, dearth of competitive edge of products due to the lack of technical know how, and establishment of industries without market research are some of the factors that are responsible for industries not functioning in their full capacity. But industrialists also point to lack of adequate facilities and incentives from the government as being a major lacuna. It goes without saying that incentives, at least in the beginning, are needed for industries to get off the ground. The responsibility for coming up with incentives package rests with the government. In Rupandehi, lack of governmental interventions have meant that small industries are at a disadvantage in competing with Indian goods. With correct policy interventions and incentive offers, there is no reason why units like processing industries—which are presently conspicuous by their absence despite the region being rich in some agriculture products— would not come up. Learning from the sombre situation in Rupandehi, the government has to take up the challenge of resuscitating the dying industries across the country.

A Touching Sight

LITTLE children coming out in the street and demanding their right to go to school, to get education. It made a touching sight. But what led these little children to come out in the street and demand a right that is and should be theirs beyond any doubt? Right to education is something that has been recognised as an inalienable right and this most basic of the rights cannot be taken away. So why do these children have to resort to demonstration to reinforce something which, under normal circumstances, is natural? There must be an element of insecurity that has threatened this right. The concerns that moved the parents and the schools to take this step must have been felt to have seriously imperiled the education system. The rally organised by PABSON was an assertion that right to go to school is something that cannot be curtailed. The demand to close schools is the most unreasonable demand whatever quarters they may have come from. However, this is also a time private schools did some introspection at the face of the allegations that education is getting increasingly commercialised. We have to be careful lest higher and quality education become the domain of the elite and the well-heeled class alone. Another aspect that ails the education system today is lack of a proper plan with a vision into the future. The education system today seems to lack the view of what the country shall need in a few years time. Oblivious to the needs of the nation in future, the education system seems to be wholly oriented towards producing graduates who are trained to be pure academicians instead of producing useful and skilled manpower. What we need today is to make optimum use of the resources that we have in abundance, that is, human resource. We possess the resource of manpower that can be developed and trained in such a way that it proves to be an asset.