The country loses Rs 1.79 billion
from a day's bandh, according to a study ‘The Economic Cost of General Strikes
in Nepal’ by the head of Research Department at the central bank Dr Min Bahadur
Shrestha and Shashi Kant Chaudhary.
Between January 2008 and August
2013, the bandh also cost 2.15 percentage points off the annual gross domestic
product (GDP) growth rate, apart from pushing the price – especially food
products – and disturbing the tourist arrivals, the study reported, revealing
that the monthly inflation rates were above nine per cent, whenever two-day
general strike was reported the previous month. Further, three or more days of
general strikes led to inflation rate crossing 10 per cent except in 10th and
11th months of 2009-10.
"The
country had to bear an accumulated output loss of Rs 27 billion per year at
current prices, which is around 1.5 per cent of the country’s annual GDP,"
it added. "There were a total of 4,451 general strikes in 75 districts
between 2008 and 2013. Solukhumbu recorded the highest number of bandhs at 207
days in the five-and-a-half-year period. But bandh hit the Kathmandu district
hard with daily gross output loss at Rs 148.44 million, followed by Morang at
Rs 87.80 million and Jhapa at Rs 69.67 million in 2012-13."
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