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The agricultural sector in eastern Nepal is in dire straits on the face of the corona pandemic. As the lockdown prolongs, production and distribution are affected, and hundreds of thousands of farmers and traders fear severe financial distress. The resulting slowdown in production and supplies is set to result in long-term shortage of agro products in Province 1.

While consumers don’t find vegetables to buy, farmers are compelled to let their produce rot in the farms. Nobody comes to pick them, and the farmers have no means to deliver them to vegetable shops. “We expected the market to open soon. But the situation only got worse after Covid-19 cases were reported in Udayapur district,” says Navin Chandravanshi, a farmer at Baraha Kshetra, Sunsari. “One trader came and bought just two sacks of vegetables, while the vegetables in the farm worth some Rs 200,000 rotted.”

Vegetable prices have gone up too. Traders who buy directly from farmers sell bought vegetables at significant mark-ups. Before the lockdown, traders used to come to Chandravanshi’s farm to pick vegetables. He thinks it would be good for both the farmers and the consumers if vegetables can be sold directly to consumers instead of involving middlemen. “But we lack a mechanism to do that,” he says.

Businesses dealing in fertilizers, seeds and other agro supplies are miffed at government indifference in protecting and promoting the agro sector. “The indifference toward farmers is sure to create problems in the long run,” says Gyanendra Parajuli, owner of Sagar Feed Industries. Unable to sell eggs and chicken due to the lockdown, he has been burying 45,000 chicks a week these days. He also claims to be destroying 60,000 eggs per week.

Parajuli anticipates the 22,000 hens in his farm to die in the next 6-7 months. “I have ordered new hens from Thailand and paid for them too. But I am now in no position to import them,” he adds. “The farm will remain closed for about three months at least. By the time the lockdown is over, there will be a sharp drop in the production of chicken and eggs.”

Other poultry farmers share Parajuli’s plight. Many are selling chicken below cost price. “There is shortage of poultry feed, and we cannot even supply chicken that are ready,” says Suresh Basnet, a poultry farmer.

Lack of coordination among the authorities is adding to the farmers’ woes. Parajuli shares, “The government says we can transport our produce. The district administration says we don’t need a vehicle pass. But the policemen on the road keep troubling us.” He fears continued lockdown will shatter the poultry industry.

Not only poultry, other farmers also foresee a crisis in agriculture in the next few months. Farmer Karna Bahadur Karki from Baraha Kshetra, who saw his tomatoes rot on the farm, says, “The crop has rotted. Now we have neither seeds nor fertilizers for the next crop.”

Meanwhile, dairy farmers are also in a bad state. Dairy firms and cooperatives have slashed their purchase by half. Says Baburam Khatri, chairman of Itahari-based Kamadhenu Dairy Cooperative, “The tea shops, restaurants, and bakery shops that consume milk have closed. About 14,000 farmers from six districts who sold us milk are directly hit as we have been compelled to reduce purchase.”

On April 25, Nepal marked the fifth anniversary of the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake that rendered nearly 3.5 million people homeless, destroyed countless public and government buildings, and claimed around 9,000 lives. Five years on, 87 percent of private houses have been rebuilt, according to public records. Yet thousands are still forced to take shelter in tents and cracked buildings.

Soon after the earthquake, the government decided to give Rs 300,000 in grant to each affected household, on an installment basis, to build new houses. But the cash proved insufficient for the poor and vulnerable groups to build houses by sticking to the construction standards set by the Nepal Reconstruction Authority (NRA). In contrast, the comparably rich households took the government grant and built their houses, either by adding their own money or by taking out loans.

Initially, neither the government nor donor agencies paid much attention to vulnerable groups. There are basically two categories of households that have been unable to rebuild. The first group is comprised of single women, elderly, disabled, the landless people who do not have citizenship certificates, and the extremely poor, all of whom have been categorized as vulnerable. They are yet to start rebuilding despite accepting Rs 50,000 in the first installment of the government grant. 

In the second group are those who built the house foundation with the first installment but were then unable to complete the house. For this group of people, the NRA has a policy of providing Rs 300,000 in loan with five percent interest. But the commercial banks are hesitant, and an expected progress has not materialized. NRA officials say banks are not cooperating enough. 

 Foundational challenge

Sonam Funjo Sherpa, 65, from Chhekampar of Gorkha district shares a painful story. Widowed after the death of his wife a decade ago, he has been alone and unable to rebuild. “He cannot walk, but it takes five days to reach to district headquarters to apply for the grant,” says Ward Chair Pasang Funjo Lama. “He has a torn citizenship certificate without a photo, and his name is blurred. So he needs a new citizenship certificate too.” Sherpa is living in a house damaged by the earthquake.

Likewise, Ram Bahadur Shrestha, a permanent resident of Indrawati Rural Municipality in Sindhupalchowk district, says the Rs 50,000 he got in first installment was spent flattening his steep land so that he could build on it. “I do not have money to build the damp-proof course, the house foundation, which is essential to be eligible for the second grant installment,” Shrestha says, adding that he is not in a position to take out a loan. Nor does he have all the required documents. His four-member family is living in a makeshift house. 

Initially, there were an estimated 18,000 vulnerable people. Of them, according to the NRA, 3,000 have built their houses with the assistance of donor agencies, local governments, and other philanthropic organizations. “Currently, around 15,000 people have not started building their houses. We have instructed local governments to collect data of such groups. The lockdown has disrupted the task of data-collection,” says Manohar Ghimire, joint spokesperson and information officer at the NRA.

To resolve their problem, the NRA plans to provide them with an additional Rs 50,000 in grant but the cabinet is yet to endorse it. Similarly, the NRA will request local governments and interested donor agencies to assist vulnerable groups. “We are deploying carpenters and other technical manpower to help this group build their houses,” says Ghimire.

 Commercial disinterest 

For the second category of people, the NRA has been urging the commercial banks to simplify loan procedure. Soon after the earthquake, the government brought out a scheme of providing low-interest bank loans but the scheme has been poorly implemented. Commercial banks were reluctant to give loans to poor people, and the process was made extremely difficult for those who could not show a regular source of income. 

The NRA has also been continuously talking with commercial banks about concessional loans for vulnerable people. In 2017, the cabinet had endorsed the Working Procedure for Subsidised Credit, which allows the people who were unable to build houses after taking the first installment to take out further loans. But hundreds of earthquake-affected families cannot produce the required documents. 

The vulnerable people in earthquake-affected districts are still living in temporary or damaged houses, and even a small earthquake can destroy their abodes. There are also poor people who got the first requirement but spent the money to sustain their livelihood. Bishnu Maya Pariyar of Ajirkot, Gorkha district says, “The 50,000 rupees we got in the first installment were spent on daily essentials. Now, we don’t know how to go about rebuilding our homes,” Pariyar says. 

Single women face additional difficulties in earthquake-affected districts. Sarita Karki, 32, a resident of Kamalamai Municipality-5 of Sindhuli district, has lost all hopes. Soon after the earthquake, her husband, who was working in Malaysia, died. “I have since been struggling to feed my son and daughter. I hear the government helps single women purchase land and build a house. But I don’t know how to go about it,” she says.  

Bishnu Maya Magar, 62, of the same village, was abandoned by her husband 10 years ago. Her only income is government allowance for single women, and there is no way she can build a house on her own.  

Five years since the earthquake, thousands of poor and vulnerable families are still struggling to put a roof over their heads. With the monsoon approaching, they could not get help soon enough. 

With inputs from our district correspondents Shiva Ram Upreti (Gorkha), Yubaraj Puri (Sindhupalchowk), and Rajan Gaunle (Sindhuli)

It has been over four months since the first outbreak of the novel coronavirus was reported in Wuhan of Hubei province, China. On January 24 Nepal recorded its first Covid-19 case. Any way you look at it, Nepal had sufficient time to prepare, including on the purchase of medicines and medical kits. Yet most of this precious time was wasted.   

Medical doctors, nurses, and other frontline health workers say they are desperately short on gloves, medical masks, respirators, goggles, face shields, gowns, and aprons. Other urgent needs are ventilators, testing kits, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), and medicines. The testing process has been painfully slow due to the lack of sufficient test kits and other supporting equipment.  

Nepal has fallen far short of testing all corona suspects, which is vital to curtailing the spread of the virus. Right now only those who came to Nepal from abroad after the second week of March are being tested. Public health experts say low testing levels could be a reason behind the paucity of detected cases in Nepal, even when compared to other South Asian countries. Similarly, due to the lack of PPE, doctors and other health workers are reluctant to treat those suspected of corona or any other infectious disease. 

A doctor at the Kathmandu Medical College (KMC) says that the hospital staff has been told to prepare for the testing and treatment of possible Covid-19 patients, even as they are short on PPE and other protective gear. “Doctors, nurses and other working staffs worry they will be asked to tend to suspected Covid-19 patients even without these protective gears,” the doctor says, requesting anonymity.  

The situation is worse outside Kathmandu. For example, in the vulnerable Province 2, there are just 11 ventilators and testing level is slow. Various local governments have also complained of insufficient test kits. 

Long and short of it

Dr. Lochan Karki, President of Nepal Medical Association (NMC), acknowledges a slight improvement in the delivery of PPE. “In the initial days, the situation was dire. Things now are better, but we still don’t have sufficient stock if the number of coronavirus cases shoots up,” Karki says. He says still both private and government hospitals are short of vital medical equipment. Some private hospitals are thus trying to get supplies from private companies abroad. 
A rising global demand and severe disruptions in global PPE supply chains maybe a reason for the delay in their import in Nepal. But the federal government’s mishandling of the purchasing process is undoubtedly more responsible. First, the government initiated the process too late. Second, the decision to allow a private company to make these imports without due process invited controversy. The contract was scrapped and another one started, which also took time. 

To fast track the process, a government-to-government (G2G) purchase was initiated. On March 29, the cabinet instructed Nepal Army to do so. The army wrote to China, India, Israel, Singapore and South Korea, requesting for the needed medical supplies. 
The army took nearly three weeks to complete paperwork. Even after this, Foreign Minister Pradeep Gyawali had to talk to high-level Indian and Chinese officials to hurry things up. Of the five countries, there has been some progress on the purchase of test kits and medical equipment from China, while some medicines have also been imported from India.  

Nepal Army completed paperwork to purchase kits and medicine from China on April 20, and the army says it will take another two weeks for the first consignment to arrive. Chinese companies have informed that they are under pressure to deliver to other countries as well. In total, the army will be importing 340 tons of medical supplies worth some Rs 2.24 billion from China—and in multiple stages. The first consignment will be via a charter flight and the subsequent ones will be imported via road. 

Wait and watch, not  

On the purchase of medicines from India, there has been no substantial progress. Nepal Army has dispatched a list of medicines and equipment but is yet to receive specific prices for those items, says army Spokesperson Bigyan Dev Pandey. India is itself purchasing medical supplies, including test kits, from China. Government officials have not shared details about the progress in bringing medical supplies from Israel, Singapore, and South Korea. 
Despite the initial controversy, private companies are also being used for the imports. The Department of Health Services has signed three separate agreements with Om Surgical, Hamro Medi Concern, and Lumbini Health Care for the import of medical goods. These companies are expected to bring medical equipment worth Rs 300 million from China within next two weeks. They could yet take some time to arrive. 

As the World Health Organization puts it, the disruptions in the global supply of PPE and other medical supplies owes to, “…rising demand, panic buying and to some extent misuse of those equipment. Supplies can take months to deliver and market manipulation is widespread, with stocks frequently sold to the highest bidder.” 
To meet rising global demand, says WHO, the medical industry needs to crack up manufacturing by 40 percent. 
Nepal must increase its imports amid all these challenges. Its lethargic health bureaucracy needs to step up its game if Nepal is to tide over the corona crisis with limited damage. 

Garbage collectors of Biratnagar are forced to work under unsafe conditions as they struggle to keep themselves safe against the novel coronavirus. With little in terms of protective gear, they are under high risk of infection.

The workers are out in the field early morning every day, with only ordinary masks and surgical gloves in the name of protective gear. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), glasses, sanitizer, and surgical masks are the minimum they need in terms of safety gear.

The Biratnagar Metropolitan City has awarded Waste Management Group, a private company, the contract of collecting and disposing garbage from the city. The company deploys 220 workers to collect garbage from the houses, streets and public places across the 19 wards of the city.

“We have been trying to save ourselves from the danger with what we have been given,” says Shyam Raut, who has been working as a garbage collector for the last 15 years. “We have asked the company to give us proper gear against the coronavirus infection.”

“We work under constant fear,” says 36-year-old Raut. His colleague, 44-year-old Suresh Paswan, adds: “All we get are two pairs of gloves, an identity card, and ordinary masks. I am worried about my safety.”

“It is dangerous to pick garbage from the houses of potentially infected people. And we cannot keep distance from others when we collect and dispose off garbage,” adds Paswan.

Surya Tamang, another garbage collector says lack of protection imperils their families and their neighborhoods as well. As most workers are poorly informed on the health hazards they face, the concerned bodies should pay more attention, he adds.

Devi Acharya, chief of the contracting company, says the workers are given gloves and sanitizers as and when needed. “Some workers use them, some don’t,” he adds. “We are aware that the workers need to handle the garbage all the time. We are doing our best to protect them. But the Metropolitan City should also think about worker safety.”

The Metropolitan City, on the other hand, says it is the contractor’s responsibility to ensure worker safety. Hira Yadav, chief of its waste management department, claims the workers have been given masks right from the beginning to stave off possible infection. “Now it is up to the contractor to provide other materials. They have to see to it that the workers are safe.”

The city produces approximately 150 metric tons of garbage every day. The amount has decreased by 50 percent after the government imposed a lockdown to stop possible spread of Covid-19. Workers think it is due to the corona scare that people have limited their activities, producing less waste. Many households have told the garbage collectors to stop coming to their homes saying, “we will manage our garbage ourselves.” The house-owners may be worried that the waste management workers may be carrying the virus, the workers think.