A Plan for Returnees from Foreign Employment in Nepal

The economy of Nepal has been running on a single leg of remittance for the last three decades. It lost 145 billion rupee remittance this year. The future is also not looking good caused by COVID-19 pandemics. Nepal must choose to call back youths in foreign employment. It would be a big game-changer for the country.

 In 1980 around 90 percent of people were dependent on agriculture and the Nepali economy was stood on the base of agriculture, and was a major contributor to the economy. Only about 20 percent of the total arable land was in use at that time. The agricultural sector was contributing about 60 percent in GDP and 75 percent in export.  It is a short economic glimpse of four decades ago of Nepal four decades ago. The contribution of agriculture in GDP is decreased to 30 percent in the past forty years.  In the forty years, the scene of the Nepali economy has changed completely.

According to government sources 2, 36,208 youths were registered to go foreign employment in fiscal 2018-19. Except for this, the number of people who were already in foreign employment also was remarkable.

The COVID-19 pandemic is becoming a serious problem for the world at this time. The employer countries are in lockdown and job opportunities decreasing sharply.  Approximately 300000 skilled and semi-skilled Nepalese are working in Saudi Arabia, which, recently in the mood to send the foreign employees to their native countries among the corona pandemics. According to a source, about 400000 Nepali workers were in Qatar in 2017, another popular destination in the Gulf for Nepali youths. Likely Qatar will also prepare to send back foreign workers. It is serious news for Nepal because remittance is one of the major factors for the national economy.

In the situation, Nepal should be in a seriously formulate a plan to engage those returnees from foreign employment. It would be easy to sustainable steps to link youths in the rural agricultural sector for Nepal and supportive of the national economy. There are still plenty of scopes to work in agriculture to achieve a good representation of national GDP. The import rate of agricultural products is sharply rising year by year. The bill of import of agricultural products in Nepal is crossed 200 billion in the fiscal year 2017-18.

          
In this case, the government should encourage them to a co-operative type of cultivation; Nepal has still done some practices in this sector. The government must support them in first-stage financially and technically, however, it should remind that the traditional system of agriculture could not fulfill the requirements of life at this time, and the technology should be applied in agriculture.

 To manage them: a concept draft.

There will not be a great problem for elementary requirements like shelters for a large number of returnees from foreign employment because all of them have at least home and families in Nepal, some of them are in normal financial condition as per the Nepali life standard. Another favorable point is that most of them have more or less arable land also. Certainly, very few numbers of returnees will remain those who have not the elementary base to sustain life in the homeland should be supported by the government.

  
A. Categories of returnees from foreign employment 
 At first, it is necessary to categorize them who have come back from foreign employments, especially based on their family and property. Who are unwilling to be a farmer than the responsibility of the government would easy, but the government should inspire them to agriculture.

      
1-     Those that have sufficient land for a family.
2-    Those that have no sufficient land for a family.
3 -Those who have no land.

It is very necessary to identify the cultivable land they have in Nepal because the type of land is not similar to the point of fertility.  Overall we assume the difference between cultivable and wasteland categories in Nepal. However, the different graded land is to be used in the cultivation of different crops.

B Categories of land they owned

 All returnees from foreign employment, also probably own the fertile, plain, and other types of lands.  That is why the management of land-based on the quality of the land is another important task.

1 The plain and irrigated land for grain.
2 The arable lands on the hills. 
3 The rocky or waste-land.

 The first graded land is the most important and valuable.  Most of the owners of this class of land can manage in self-initiative but the idea of advanced technology and some financial support may necessary for them. This type of land is able for rice, wheat, oil crops, and other horticultural crops. The government should guide them to large scale farming. This is an easy class to manage.

   
The land of second graded land is hilly. People of hill areas in Nepal have been involving in traditional farming; comparably it is not easy to follow agriculture as in plain. The land may be used in horticultural and animal husbandry purposes.

        
   Those who have no land and not any scope of finance should be managed by the government should work under a plan. The government should provide land in the lease and support them until they achieve better conditions. Fertilizer, seeds and technologies, and other essential subjects also should be under the support of the government.

Overall, the government should encourage large-scale farming. In this way, Nepal can rapidly improve its economy, which is far sustainable than the remittance based unstable economy.