More Jobs Wanted

ONE of the most glaring problems facing the country is undoubtedly the lack of employment opportunities for the growing mass of people. In absence of a robust economic growth, Nepal’s employment market offers very few openings. The spectacle of hundreds of applications for one clerical job or some other support staff position at a government or a private company illustrates in a way the unemployment crunch the nation is facing. Those who have stopped studying after going through a certain level of education have to try their luck very hard at the job market, most often in vain. Those who fail to get through the iron gate of School Leaving Certificate examinations come out in tens of thousands every year to also try their luck in the employment market, which is extremely limited. As the creation of job opportunities has not kept pace with the production of the educated or semi-educated coming out of schools and colleges, every year more and more numbers are added to the mass of unemployed youth in the country. What such idle hands and minds imply in terms of lack of income and a dignified livelihood is easy to imagine. Frustrations are natural in those who have tried for years to have a reasonably gainful employment. It is not without reason that a big unemployment problem is regarded like a social time bomb that is waiting to explode. Lack of employment results in social crimes and strife.

Against the above backdrop, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba’s describing the unemployment as a problem bigger than poverty is definitely worth serious thinking. Unemployment breeds poverty. Poverty alleviation would be an easier task to handle, if there were enough employment opportunities around. Taking part in a discussion on the concept paper on the 10th development plan (2059/60-063/64) at the National Planning Commission secretariat Wednesday, Mr. Deuba asked the NPC to pay special attention to the issue of employment. He went so far as to say that NPC should keep a ten-year time perspective to resolve the unemployment problem. His emphasis on making a dent on the unemployment problem is understandable, as he correlated this problem to the Maoist problem, which has fed on the frustrations of unemployed rural youth. One of the expected thrusts of the tenth five-year plan is providing employment opportunities to the people by utilisation of the means and resources available in the country, especially to the people from the backward, underprivileged and ethnic communities. There is no gainsaying that the tenth plan document has to be bold and concrete in terms of its emphasis on generating employment opportunities.

For Planned Urbanisation

DEVELOPMENT, construction and urbanisation works are to be carried out within the Kamalamai Municipality in Sindhuli district with a loan assistance of Rs.240 million under the Urban Development and Environment Improvement Programme. Towards this end, an agreement was signed the other day between the Urban Development and Environmental Improvement Programme, Ministry of Physical Planning and Works and the Asian Development Bank. As per the accord, Asian Development Bank is to provide credit assistance for 30 years to launch the said scheme from 2002-03. Nepal’s urban centres, compared to five decades ago, have indeed increased in both number and size. In fact, right from the dawn of human civilisation, the trend of human settlements to outgrow their limits has been recorded. Urbanisation is a phenomenon that will last as long as humans walk on earth. On the other hand, the infrastructure and civic facilities of some urban centres do leave much room for improvement. Especially roads, potable water and sewerage systems, electricity supply and last but not the least, garbage collection and disposal activities. Lack of all these amenities has, in turn, spawned additional problems for some municipalities to face and overcome.

One main reason why some municipalities are devoid of infrastructure and civic facilities worth the name could be the absence of prior planning by the concerned municipality authorities. Another could be due to hastily taken decisions by the concerned government authorities to declare some settlements as municipalities without ascertaining their capacities to construct the much-needed infrastructure and civic amenities. Yet another could be the lack of means and resources on the part of such municipalities to upgrade their infrastructure and civic amenities. It could be due to all this—and more—that sights of narrow dusty roads, leaky drinking water pipes, open sewer pits and drains and uncollected garbage dumps have become permanent fixtures of some municipalities. As if all this was not enough, what is more worrying to note is that even with such inherent problems, some municipalities, due to migrations from the rural areas, are still expanding their limits with the passing of each year. In other words, there is every danger of such municipalities turning into urban slums. While it is heartening to know that some municipalities are initiating remedial measures, it goes without saying that there is indeed a crying need for more such assistance for other municipalities as well to improve their infrastructure and civic amenities.