Is Remittance Really Good for Nepal?

I had been to Jhapa, my birthplace, to celebrate my annual festive-vacation for a month. Jhapa, it’s always awesome, lovely and growing. I just love to be there. My home at Jhapa is close to the border with India. The transit point is Kakarvitta, which is one of the largest port of Nepal. One fine morning I got chance to go to the entry point. I saw many Indians coming by bicycle to Nepal. I asked one of the locals, "who are they? where are they going?" He said, “All of our brother – sisters, sons – daughters, dad – mom, uncles – aunts are abroad. We need someone to work in fields and factories in our country, right? They are labors. They help to run our economy”. I was shocked. There were almost a hundred people. They come to Nepal everyday for employment. They reside in India, consume in India and come to Nepal for work. And these many people were coming only through one entry point. We have free border of 1690 km (Wikipedia). Guess the statistics for yourself.

I was already concerned about the impact of foreign employment in Nepal when I heard a program featuring the families of foreign employed in Nepal in BBC. Most of the families that were featured were devastated due to absence of family head. Children were following wrong path and most of the income was spent in luxury items. They don’t aid to economic development rather increase BOP deficit because all of those items are imported. Now, this situation of Jhapa forced me to analyzing the impact of foreign employment in my locality, which would in term reflect the status of the country as a whole.

While I was shopping for goods, there was a product whose marked price was INR 10 i.e. NPR 16 but the shopkeeper had priced it NPR 20. NPR 4 more than its maximum retail price - I was bargaining.

While I was demanding for fair price a lady came to the shop and purchased same product at NPR 20 without a word. The shopkeeper laughed at me and said, “If I mark it NPR 22, I will be able to sell it faster……… Her husband is abroad to earn as well………… So people like her receive money without any labor. It’s free………. People of Nepal don’t know the value of money. They want to show their friends that they can make larger expenses then those around them.” And he is true, the price is inflated far too above the marked price and people are paying for it because they receive money without any cost. They don’t respect money, they have no idea how difficult it is to earn a penny,  and don’t know how to use it. As for me, I never receive money for free so I couldn’t purchase the product.

Next day I went to India, got same product at INR 9 (whose marked price was INR 10). I got INR 1 discount at retail purchase. Not only me, its a trend in border areas of Nepal to purchase goods from India. However, it’s not because people bother about the price of the product or quality. They perceive that goods purchased in India is better in terms of price and quality. They are right to some extent, only to some extent. Moreover, to purchase goods from India is a culture now. The money that comes to Nepal through remittance is not spent in home country or any home product. In fact we don't have much as home prouct.

Concretization is another issue that has come along with the remittance flow. Concretization: converting cultivatable land to plots for residential housing. On top of that, because there are no youth in the villages, most of the land that were cultivated in the past are barren. We are driving ourselves to food crisis. We are also creating a generation that know how to purchase but not how to produce. Most of the under aged don’t go to school as well. Its because studying is a tough task and there are abundance of job for illiterate in gulf countries.

I asked a kid in my neighbor, why aren't you going to school. His answer was shocking, “Why should I study. It’s useless.” I then asked, “Who said? What will you do for living?” “After 18 I will go to Quarter for earning.” was his simple and sincere answer. "My father and my elder brother are abroad and they earn lot of money", he added. On my quest as to how the money was utilized, he said that they made a better house, they purchased a TV, DVD player, a laptop (which is used to play games in our villages) and a motorcycle.

There are almost 15 FM stations that operate in Jhapa. The content they play as advertisements are not helping as well. The media and communication sector claim themselves to be the fourth pillar for the development of our nation but instead they are driving the nation into dark. The advertisements are all about work in gulf countries, EDV and individual focused real state (for housing). The advertisements are so convincing that it would lure anyone to follow what they say. I couldn't see any positive and sustainable impact of those advertisements in the development of our country. Especially when we are facing the crisis of human resource and the money sent from abroad is used for meeting useless expenditure rather then investing. This trend will further create a poorer, dependent and backward Nepal.

People are not going to school, the cultivable fields are barren, there are no labors for our factories and industries, people love to shop abroad, there are no youths in villages – they are empty – and no one is interested to address the problem. Not even the media and communication sector who claim to be the agent for positive social change.

Most amazingly, in the duration of a month of my stay in Jhapa, none of the FM stations ever played any news about IPO of any company, no news about any development works, there were no interviews of any entrepreneurs or businessperson or teachers, there were no adds that would request people to send their children to school, no advertisements about job vacancies in home country.......... nothing at all that would reflect that our society is prospering or that would give a hint that our society would prosper in coming future.

"Is remittance really good for Nepal?"
Remittance are always good, there's no doubt about it. They are earnings of our citizen. Its a source by which our country is running. "What are we doing with the remittance?" is the question that all of us must be asking. Until we make any effort to learn a habit of investment in productive sector and saving, and until the responsible people and sources of our society act responsibly and if this trend of using remittance to purchase luxury items, concretization or purchase from abroad continues - the impact of remittance will not be good in our country. No matter how much money we earn, we will still be poor, our country will still be undeveloped.