National 2 (Spotlight Weekly)

Fallout On Nepal

As US-led forces begin their military campaign in Iraq, scarcity of petroleum and uncertainty regarding Nepalese workers in the Gulf haunt Nepal

By SANJAYA DHAKAL

No sooner had the United States started its military campaign against Iraq on March 20, there were serpentine queues in the petrol pumps and kerosene shops in the country.

The initial panic of the Nepalese public, who feared a repetition of the scarcity of petroleum products witnessed during the first Gulf War in 1990 and hence queued to collect enough stocks, was fuelled by an equally flustered reaction from the government.

The government, which had been claiming it had plenty of stocks of petroleum products and there was no indication of supply shortage, decided, on the same breath, to enforce rationing and, strangely, asked motorists to ply odd-numbered vehicles on odd dates and vice versa.

Motercycles under action : Odd rule

"No wonder, there was even more panic among people who thought that the government enforced the new decision because it did not have enough petroleum products," said Narayan Bista, a motorcyclist who spent an hour in queue to get his two liters of petrol.

The government's response was similar to the one during the Hrithik Roshan episode in December 2000, when the then government fuelled public anger by slapping a ban on films by the Bollywood heartthrob, even as there was no proof that he had made derogatory remarks against Nepalese.

"It has been the characteristic of the Nepalese government to take strange decisions. They are always found wanting at times of crises. Otherwise, there is no rationale of enforcing decisions like the odd-even one. If someone doesn't have petrol, he/she will not use vehicles unnecessarily. Why make it compulsory and complicate the situation?" asked Bista.

The response of petrol pump owners, too, has not been any different than in the past. With the first indications of public panic, they immediately concealed their stocks and created artificial shortage expecting a price hike.

All this while the government officials have been claiming they have enough stocks of petrol, diesel, kerosene as well as cooking gas. "The government has enough stock. We made this decision of rationing only as precautionary measure," said Mahesh Lal Pradhan, Minister for Industry, Commerce and Supplies.

Concerns About Workers

Following the war in Iraq, there has been growing concern regarding the situation of hundreds of thousands of Nepalese workers in the Gulf region.

According to Bharat Singh Thapa, president of Nepal Overseas Employees' Association, there are 450,000 to 500,000 Nepalese workers currently in various countries of the Gulf region. "While there are no Nepalese in Iraq itself, there are around 12,000 Nepalese in Kuwait, over 70,000 in Qatar, over 350,000 in Saudi Arabia and so on," he said.

The Royal Nepalese Embassy in Saudi Arabia has already made emergency arrangements to provide shelter to Nepalese who could be forced to evacuate Kuwait, a frontline state in the current war. "Our ambassador there has rented two big houses and erected three-thousand small tents to provide them necessary shelter in case they want to leave Kuwait. He has distributed leaflets to Nepalese workers in Kuwait telling them how to get to the shelter in Saudi Arabia. But till now none of them in Kuwait has shown any interest to evacuate. They are confident that the war will not affect them and that it will be over soon," said Thapa.

Economists say that if the war in Iraq drags on, then Nepal could be seriously affected as it depends heavily on the remittances sent by its workers there. "But in case the war is short, it could have positive effect because more Nepalese may go there to take part in the big reconstruction that will have to follow," said an economist.

Another fallout on Nepal besides scarcity in petroleum products and uncertainty among overseas workers, would be the serious decline in the tourism market, which had just began to pick up.