Scenario for Nepalese Economy and Infrastructure Development (A Hypothetical Analysis)

The rampant spread of COVID'19 pandemic outbreak across borders, cities, geographies, and landscapes has severely impacted almost the whole world and triggered significant downside economical and finanacial risks and other health risks to the global economic outlook.

Due to this continous lockdown announced by the Government of Nepal (GoN), the economy may slow down over the next six months, affecting NEPSE, Nepal Stock Exchange, financing and credit, economic hardship, daily wages workers, all kinds of businesses, price tag fluctuations, migrant, sustainability of infrastructure development projects especially like Hydropower projects, which due to these lockdown, will hamper and cause delays and almost affect all the development works which needs to be completed on time. The required commercial operation date was also affected by these pandemic which will lead to affect the project planning and execution strategy.

For most of the businesses, the slow down could be in the form of supply disruptions, fall in production and consumption demand, and stress on the banking and financial all sectors. Due to these affect, most of the Foreign Direct Investment processes (FDI) will also be in hold and there would be crisis of money exchange and due to the stoppage of International Flights and Cargos, many passengers and students who are planning to visit abroad has already affected their situations which has the negative influence of losing their financing.

As we see, Nepal is in the stage where the things are sustaining and political stability can be seen. Development works are going on fast pace and most of the developers are involved in developing hydro sectors to lighten the scopes. But due these pandemic outbreak, and especially lockdown, all the current processes and procedures, planning of projects, financial planning, operational management, execution of all kinds of projects are already in delay. Most of the infrastructure development works which were related to Sustainable Development Goals (SDG's) will be affected for the long run so to complete on given deadlines. We, curently don't know how much time these lockdown will happened? One, or two months closure will have negative impact on the whole processes. We need to be believe that the prolonged shutdown forces us to plan for new crisis, that are sure to manifest themselves in the near future.

Schools, colleges and universities, all levels exams, classes has been disrupted which will lead their classes, exams delayed which will also delayed their results and so as the new sessions.

Furthermore, the National Pride Projects like "Melamchi Diversion Project", Upper Tamakoshi Hydroelectric Project, which the government has invested huge amount of money to developed and complete on time but it has also been confirmed that the projects especially the Melamchi Diversion Project will be more in delay if the government and the concerned authorities don't think alternatively to pressurised them to come back in work immediately after recovery of the pandemic outbreak. For the Melamchi project, Nepal government should write officially to Sino Hydro and marking to Chinese Embassy to call back the engineers and contractors to Nepal to start-up the work. We know, if we start thinking from today, then the development work will start at least even it was already delayed and the work was stopped from January 2020 onwards.

We don't know when the Corona Virus will end and how much day/ months, still, all citizens have to sit in their home due to this lockdown as the Virus has affected many lives all over the world.

In contrast, government and the political leaders of all parties of all the States have to coordinate and collaborate with their adminsitration level to give some relief and packages to the citizens in food and gas shortages, medical facilities for seasonal fever, and other diseases which they might need the regular check ups, obsteric & maternity health, child care, elderly care, epidemiological effect; at least considering them as "Your Voters & liberal citizens" who have voted them and they acquire and became the political leader at different local, province and national levels whose role is to work for the economical and social development of the country.

We need to believe that the prolonged shutdown forces us to plan for new crisis that are sure to manifest themselves in near future, food shortages, economical hardship, loss of many daily worker jobs, social unrest and especially political leaders fallout!

Matured Leaders, bureaucrats of all provinces and national levels knows that if today they fail to commence strong decisions which will be fair to their citizens, and for their country, then tomorrow might change forever. Agencies working for the social, economical, exposure should develop strong administrative bodies at all provinces and the local levels to facilitate people and genuinely work for the sake of the people and so as the country so that the government can monitor and survillience simultaneously at its all regions, borders and geographies.

However, there are many challenges like corruptions, lack of transparency, social issues, biasedness, equal access or equality, financial dealings and management, traditional political driven mechanisms, etc,. which need to be examined and overcomed by the true leaders who believe that in collaborating and coordinating, yes, they can!

Somewhere we studied that our eighty percent of the total populations were engaed in agricultural works where we used to produce rice, maize, sun flower, garlic, onion, turmeric, and other necessary daily routine things which we used to export the all production to India itself, but still people are depending to India for all those items which we used in our daily routine in our food consumption and still people are dying in some provinces of Nepal due to lack of food, poverty and being homeless of natural disasters and man made disasters where there are no support from the local, regional, province, state and national level even it was supported by relief and packages at some places.

Some economist and bureacrats, some non governmental offices, spreaded that we have more than 6% economic growth and we have sustainable economy and also heard that we have minimised the poverty level, but still at rural and urban region, remote areas, people are facing problem to have the food for one time consumption, no daily wages, and still our country men at different provinces and regional spread and have loose talks, that we are becoming strong-economically and socially!

Financial experts, who talk the things of research carried out by international agencies don't even know what measures we have to take to make our economy strong, how we can facilitate people so that the developments can be sustainable; only some banking financing experts have the generic ideas who only focuses to priories taxation and such rules which cannot be taken seriously to uplift the communities and societies. There are many such mechanisms, where it can be fruitful to grow at all levels, like giving facilities so that the taxation can be also genuinely developed, PAN numbers should be equally distributed at all levels, monitoring and surveillance on customs, regular audits, salary output, facilities of citizen and superannuation, social security taxes, raids on suspected businesses, accountability of the companies, alternate regulatory bodies and strategical framework for developing equal opportunities, establishing help desks for new companies and organizations, hedging, and locking of US Dollars, as increase of such dollar will weaken the Nepali Rupees which will affect in FDI and other development works, anti corruption principles from local to national level, watch guard of treaties, agreements, and proof reading of the businesses and developments.

In reality, most of the employees, leaders, administrative bodies, line agencies, businesses, etc,. were found involved in corruptions, and even the taxation companies were involved in managing corruptions which shows that our government should enact strongly to adopt the principles which need integrity and accountability and regular checks from the government itself so that the corruptions can be controlled.

We need the clear vision and mission, monitoring in all such activities which is affecting our countries economies, border security checks at customs, and transparency in every work which can be essential to manage the financing and economical sustainability and economic growth to regularize by the special authorities who have the power to say "No" to corruptions!

These are the hypothetical studies carried out to understand the situation of our country where the things can be changed, if we became more responsible to grow our country and make economically strong.

Financing development and monitoring is the two drastic thing which we need now to change the concepts of corruptions and developing our nations so that it will be good for everybody.

Our Country top political leaders need to adopt such principles which will help themselves to grow in social and controlling economic failures in terms of maintaining bilateral and multilateral agreements for raw materials, securities on materials, upgradation of foreign policies, cross-checking of all customs, black listing of illegal businesses and penalties and updating to all the administrative levels at all provinces that to check and monitor all, considering equal treatment to all citizens as based on same law and regulations but not considering them from the parties, supporters, influencers, or their donors. Law should be equal to every citizens.

Biasedness is leading our country economy down. Merchants never think of Countries good as they only focusses on their businesses and they always need relief even they have insurances and invested their money in shares and development markets and other businesses. Government needs to surveillance those merchants, organizations and companies who are not paying taxes, even it may be national, multi-national companies, which can lead the "arbitrary" (or wildness) (?????? ) who don't want to follow any laws, rules and regulation of the same country.

Economic development in Nepal has been complicated and affected by the constant change in political scenarios. We have a series of developments plans of five years in attempt to make progress in economic development.

Natural resources has been fully exploited influenced from political parties but what we have gain in this 30 years period of time even the monarchy agrees with the seven political parties- the democratic system (2047 BS) and now the federal republic of Nepal where our citizens brought for new Nepal? Is this the dream we dreamt to build Nepal, stronger Nepal, economically sustain Nepal?

The financial crisis should not become an excuse to raise taxes, which would only undermine the economic growth required to regain our strength. Economic growth doesn't mean anything if it leaves people out. Long-term economic growth depends mainly on nonmonetary factors such as population growth and workforce participation, the skills and aptitudes of our workforce, the tools at their disposal, and the pace of technological advance. Fiscal and regulatory policies can have important effects on these factors.

References:

Economical Growth of Nepal, Wikipedia; Economical Growth Rate, Google,

Submitted college article while studying M.Sc. Urban Design and Conservation on topic "Urban Infrastructure Financing in Nepal"

Why Economical Strategy is Failure in Nepal?; (my current article)

Based on other research works during my master degree different subject matters.