Saturday, September 12, 2015

Challenges to Entrepreneurship in Nepal


The oxford dictionary states entrepreneur as “A person who sets a business or businesses taking financial risk in hope of profit.” Entrepreneurs are rare breed. They venture in areas where other people feel reluctant. A successful entrepreneur is loaded or filled with creative and innovative ideas, fresh spirits, unique vision of the future, leadership quality and finally strong determination to take a risk. The activity of an entrepreneur converting his visions to action is called entrepreneurship. In the present context of Nepalese society along with tremendous possibilities in the sectors like tourism, hydroelectricity, handicrafts and other aspects. A bulk of challenges needs to be addressed.
A popular proverb states “Half a loaf is better than to bread.” True to the words, in spite of youth in Nepal having such entrepreneurial skill and willingness to work for their country, the large scale of political instability and lack of clear vision of the government has resulted in brain drain from the country, and also regular shift from one business to another. The examples of Bal Krishna Joshi, the famous goat seller of Nepal, extremely support the statement. After being forced by government’s intervention, he had to repeatedly shift from one profession to another.  
Entrepreneurship in Nepal is largely affected by the problems like lockout, strike, price hike, liquidity crunch, corruption, lack of good business policies, insecurities, shortage of skilled manpower, lack of advanced technology, high bureaucracy, which are the major challenges for entrepreneurs in Nepal. One of the basic problem seen is the unwillingness of both the government and nongovernmental economic practitioners to invest in the Nepalese market. Thanks largely due to lack of any concrete plans and activities from the side of government. Even the already established big industrial houses and corporations are getting it difficult to sustain. From the recent data published by Morang chamber of commerce, In the Koshi Zone, Industries are producing only 40% of its production capacity. Let’s view the glimpse of some industries over here. Before Some years, it had been found 100 running plastic factories but now only 11 are remain. Similarly there were 5 running factories of zinc oxide but now we cannot found any one of it. Like this above facts reflects the overall industrial condition of Nepal which has declining trend.


Yes, it is fact that every entrepreneur take risks, but those risks are calculated, which entrepreneur are ready to tackle but no one wills to bear such uncalculated and uncertain risks. The 12 years long internal/domestic violence seen in Nepal has hampered the growth and development of infrastructure to a large scale. Nearly 30% of infrastructures has either been destroyed or damaged. Likewise import tax is much higher in Nepal than export tax which inter deepens the problem. As a result only a partial or lopsided development is noticed, leaving out large-scale undevelopment. The present educational pattern of Nepal to deepens the problem, university graduates lack competence. In the sense that the colleges and universities in Nepal focus on theoretical aspects rather than vocational concept. Thus, youths in Nepal lack idea of entrepreneurship, enterprises, freedom and free market economy, As a result Nepal education is blooming garden for foreign Multinational Corporation rather than national development. Along with it government's delay is all the fronts like announcing of annual budget concern in the economic infrastructure and development and absence of proper motivation and reward discards the growth of the ideas of entrepreneurship. A big question that generally comes to the mind of common Nepalese people is “How long can a country sustain only by collecting foreign remittance? How can a country sustain by depending totally on foreign donation and aids? How can the country be prosperous without enaction of constitution for such a long period of time? How long entrepreneurs bear such challenges?
Much left to be done in order to march forward the direction of economic progress and development. It is always wise to begin then being rather too late. Formulation of new policies, proper monitoring and evaluation by the government authorities, along with the community people and civil society with transparency in the part of government need to be practiced. Laws and order should be proper implemented in order to check the problem of insecurity. Public awareness should be created about good governance. The concept of decentralization should be well implemented by government. The concept o, ‘think globally act locally should be prioritized and new economic dimension should be open in order to attract foreign investors. All these are to be supplemented by proper diplomatic relation with neighbor countries. Also the unwanted hurdles and concentration of financial institution in city areas has created the inaccessibility of people in loan. New policies for distribution of loan and other aids should made by the government, so the local entrepreneur with lack of capital get access to preserve the concept of entrepreneurship.  Along with it the government of Nepal lacks proper long-term economic policies. As a result the expenses of government in the administrative sector are much higher than that of economic sector. The taxation policy of the government need to be revised in order to promote the growth and development of economic activities more over focus to established special economic zone, dry sea port, and separated industrial area for proper management.

Weakness among the youth is also instrumental in this aspect. Today youths in Nepal are directed too much towards political issues than other aspects like economic development. They lack the ideas of stock market and investment sectors. Predisposition of thoughts rather than materializing is a common phenomenon in Nepal. Self-reliance and self-esteem is really low in the sector of economic investment. The concept of political economy and sustainable development should be brought forward. Youth should be agent of change not mere, ‘object’ of change by actively participating in entrepreneur activities. 

This Essay was written in November 2010. It won the second position in National Essay Competition organized in Nepal by Samriddhi Foundation on the occasion of Global Entrepreneurship Week.

Saturday, June 6, 2015

If I were SUPER MAN- Nepal Earthquake

On April 25th I was on the way to Imadol, one of the earthquake affected villages in Lalitpur district, hoping to see my family. I witnessed houses falling, people crying, shouting and groaning all around me. This was shocking.  
Picture of a recently damaged house at  Imadol
I think I was as scared and traumatized as everyone else. I spent one night on the carrier of a truck without any contact with my friends and colleagues.  My facebook post on April 28,2015

This is the carrier of a truck, where I spent my night at Imadol, lalitpur

Then I came to know about the scarcity of blood in hospitals; this news reached me through a neighbor spending the night in a tent next to us. As a blood volunteer myself, I decided to go to a hospital; I asked for a ride on a Nepal Police Force Vehicle and reached Teaching Hospital to find friends from Bibeksheel Nepali helping in the management of patients and casualties. And thus began my post-earthquake volunteering journey at Bibeksheel Nepali.

Volunteering at Bibeskheel Nepali
First, I started by managing an overwhelming number of volunteers looking to help out in any way they could. Once the system started working well, I helped establish several departments- social media, helpline service, data analysis, inventory- to name a few. Working from Bibeksheel Nepali office

After one week of 24-7 involvement, I concluded that the office functions were set up, and decided to visit earthquake affected areas.
Along with the field relief team, I headed to Listikot VDC of Sindhupalchowk district, near the China border on May 9th, 2015 . 
Leaving for Listikot, Shindhupalchowk
At Barhabise, Shindhupalchowk

We reached up to Barhabishe VDC on the first evening.  I helped the villagers prepare dinner for our team of 57 on a Kitchen set up under the tent. 

Cutting Vegetables at Sindhupalchowk
We camped at Barhabise on the first night. 

Tents were set up on the terraced hills. Right at the foot of the hill, a screen was projected, onto the wall of an affected building; everyone was watching football on the makeshift projector screen. From the youngest of child to the oldest of men- everyone was peeping out from their tents, watching the game. And I thought to myself, “Damn, the Nepalis are a cool people!

Early in the morning the next day, we headed to a village uphill, called Listikot. It was very beautiful, but equally dangerous to venture at that time. We were challenged by big landslides on the way- huge rocks were falling almost everywhere from the tall, rocky hills. 

Continues Landslide in front of us 
It seemed almost impossible for us to go uphill. Our driver was a local resident, and even he refused to take the risk of going up. It took us great time and effort to convince him and continue with the journey. 
Driver was convinced by now, but we realized that we didn't even have helmets. It was a huge risk to take our volunteers there.  But we decided not to stop.
Zoom in and see carefully, You will see our trucks and volunteers
We collaborated with a local organization to help open the road with a bulldozer. But as soon as we cleared up road blockage of one landslide area and crossed over, another landslide blocked it, making it extremely difficult to create a safe trail. 
Our volunteers, trying to manage the situation
Our destination was a remote village on top of a hill near the China border but along the way, we observed that people living downhill (near the Votekoshi River) were not getting anything to eat up to that point of time.

Broken houses, made up of local stone and mud
One of the villagers told us that very few organizations arrived with very little relief material.  We met injured women, children, and elderly people unable to carry relief materials to their villages from the distribution point downtown. They were deprived of medical support, food, shelter and, clothing relief.
Villagers helping us to reach up hill
Some villagers were very supportive of our work but some even tried to loot all the relief materials that we were carrying. Some blocked the roads while others threatened our lives. We had to deal with the crisis with great courage and empathy.
Villagers blocking roads after threatening our life 
Finally, we reached uphill and found out that the situation was much worse than what we expected.
Nepalese MBBS students from Bangladesh distributing medicines. 
We tried our best to support them with medical, food, clothing and shelter relief as per our capacity.

While returning, one tire of our truck got punctured. It was at a very risky landslide area. 


We managed to changed the tire. And it started raining, which increased the danger of landslides; it was getting dark again. I remember one of my medical team member saying, "I usually love cloudy days, but this time in the middle of a jungle, I find them so scary." We didn't think we would make it back home safely.

After changing tire
We return to our office at 1 am on the 11 th of May after 10 hours of a very risky journey. 
While returning, my heart was filled with a little satisfaction, a little joy, huge pain of villagers, and a sense of victory over death. 
Whereas my mind was filled with many more lessons, struggles, and experiences. 
My whole body was exhausted but my face was filled with smiles like this. 

On the second big earthquake of the 12th of May, I was in a Psychological healing class organized by Bibeksheel Nepali. Just before the earthquake came I was asked to build on a story based on a given scenario. My scenario was If I were superman...
 My story was "If I were super man, I would fly to Listikot and stop the landslide". As I finished sharing this, within five minutes, another big earthquake came.  
 I thought that life had given me an opportunity to make my story true once again. Within 10 minutes, I reached TU Teaching hospital and started volunteering from there.  



Lastly, thank you everyone for supporting our mission to fulfill hunger and fight with death.  

Video of the Journey:-
Mission Listikot, Sindhupalchowk- Earthquake relief Nepal

More Details:-
Task Force's Work from Office
In Republica


This experience was published in Setopati:- 

In online media


Tuesday, July 29, 2014

My first blog on the day when I received gifts from special person.

Received gifts from special person...  
During training period at Park village resort, kathmandu, Nepal

I created this blog long time ago but didn't use it. Months ago, someone suggested me to start blogging but I didn't. Today I received two boxes full of gifts from her, shipped all the way from far away. These gifts are not just beautiful but reminder of our deep friendship and affection. Every moment we spent together are unforgettable and still with so much time apart, I miss her so much. I can't bring back those days but I can always cherish them. Finally, today I will accept her suggestion and write this first post in the name of our friendship and my love and gratitude to her.   

Hatheway Rwalinson lives in other side of the earth (ie, USA).  I met her in December 2013 during 14 days program "Conflict transformation across Culture (CONTACT)" in Kathmandu, Nepal. The first day of that program, organizers appointed me a room which I had to share with a lady from United states. We were of same age, and perfect combination of : young, wild and crazy. At the beginning, to remember her name was quite difficult for me. So, I break down the name into two words "Hathe" and "Way". Hathe means hand in Nepali and way is a road or track. Kind of easy to remember. ;)

Photo at Thamel, Kathmandu

So, I hold her hand and we walked on a beautiful garden of the Resort. We took a lot of  pictures and shared same room for 15 days. During our time together, sometimes we cried, sometimes we laughed and  sometimes we had childhood memories, high school love, struggles and cultures to share, staying awake all night long. And some secrets too ;) .

One thing I will never forget is her teasing me for wearing funny pink pyjama at night. Until the end of the training we fought and ,shared dresses and cosmetics, danced and shared meals with each other.  We were different shades of sisters and had known each other form long time. 

On fifteenth day, I was so happy to know that she is staying 15 more days at Kathmandu and her friend had just arrived to see her from India.  Even then, together we had a lot of fun. I started walking on a streets of Thamel, which I never did. Visiting Durbars and temples around Kathmandu, eating on restaurants, bargaining for a taxi fair, buying earrings. It was fun unlimited with someone new in familiar land ;).  

My favorite among all the gifts received

My dear friend Hatheway Rwalinson,

Thank you so much for all those gifts. I feel blessed with all the love and care you pondered on me. And thanks for tolerating me because naughty and sometimes hard to deal with Subuna, loves you beyond explanation coz you mean a lot to her              .... :) :D :( 

Tonnes of love, hug and kisses.. <3 <3 <3