Country to lose billions due to bandh

The country is going to lose another couple of billions due to bandh.
A day of bandh costs the country Rs 1.98 billion, according to the figures of Livable Nepal, a campaign that advocates for economic freedom. "Even an hour of bandh will cost the country around Rs 83 million."
The criminalisation of politics and politicisation of criminal activities have cost the country dearly in the last one decade, according to economists, who opined that not a single political party, including Nepali Congress (NC), CPN-UML, UCPN-Maoist and Madesh-based parties are serious about the economy.
“We thought that the era of lawlessness has come to an end and the political parties are now serious on nation building but not a single party has learnt any lesson from their past mistakes," they said, without wanting to be named.
The country is in dire need of investment to create employment and fuel economic growth but apart from long hours of power outage and labour trouble that have made the economy more expensive and less competitive, the country is vulnerable to the huge loss due to lawlessness and high headedness of political parties that call nationwide strike crippling the economic activities.
Barring the economic activities and people's right to profession, no country can develop. According to Economic Freedom Report 2011, a country with economic freedom can have higher per-capita growth, whereas a country without economic freedom has the lowest growth.
"Nations with high economic freedom had an average growth in per-capita GDP between 1990 and 2009 of 3.07 per cent, compared to 1.18 per cent for those nations that have no economic freedom, in constant 2005 international dollars," it said, adding that safety of life and property, proper and effective implementation of rule of law and freedom to enterprise and participation in profession of one's own choice should be guarantee for the economic growth.
The successive governments have failed to guarantee economic freedom that could bring higher levels of prosperity, greater individual freedoms, and longer life spans.Increases in economic freedom decreases homicide and unemployment rates, whereas lower freedom increases criminal activities and unemployment.
Some 1,500 youths fly to Gulf and Malaysia in search for employment due to lack of employment at home.
One of the key employment generators, the industrial sector has been witnessing sluggish growth since last two fiscal years. The bandh also costs the sector Rs 386 million per day, according to the figure.

Reasons for bandh from January to August in 2011
Political — 59 per cent
Accident — 2 per cent
Association — 23 per cent
Padlocking/Protest — 12 per cent
Others — Four per cent
(Source: Livable Nepal)