Social sector performs better despite economic gloom

KATHMANDU, July 12: Despite widening cracks in economy, Nepal fared relatively well on the crucial social sectors in 2009/10, shows Economic Survey 2010 that the government presented at the parliament on Sunday.

Good news is: per capita income jumped 96 dollar to $568 this year -- thanks to huge transfers, including remittance. However, agriculture and real sectors -- the mainstay of semi and unskilled rural and urban employment -- shrank, adding woes to a larger mass.

The Survey mainly portrays a gloomy picture of food availability situation, as agricultural sector grew at 1.2 percent -- which was less than half of last year´s growth and annual population growth. At the grassroots level, this along with sharp rise in commodity prices is feared to have raised the incidence of malnutrition.

Industrial sector bounced back to grow at 3.9 percent this year, but service sector lost the growth momentum - shrinking skilled job opportunities in the urban areas. The construction sector, despite slowing in latter half of the fiscal year, grew by 6.6 percent and absorbed unskilled and semi-skilled workers in mass in urban centers.

Economy as a whole grew at low 3.5 percent, which is 2 percentage points less than what the government targeted to achieve for the year. The growth was also lower than 4 percent recorded a year before.

Still, Nepal´s total national output at current price expanded to Rs 1,182.6 billion at current price, from Rs 991.3 billion of the last year.

* GNI per capital up to Rs 42,291 ($ 568)
* Nepal´s output up to Rs 1183 billion ($15.87 billion)
* 500 new sub-health posts added this year
* Number of schools grew by 1,848
* New 110 Km road added to national road network
* Total telephone lines rose to 7.61 million, tale-density to 27.70 percent.

The flagship annual report of the Ministry of Finance portrays a rosy picture in the crucial social sector -- health and education. During the year, the government added 521 health infrastructures.

Of them, mainly the establishment of 500 new sub-health posts and 20 primary health centers is expected to step up basic health services, upholding people´s rights to health facilities in the rural and remote areas. The number of hospital beds in urban centers too increased by 50 this year.

Interestingly, the survey reports a decline in the number of health workers -- something which raises doubt over people enjoying good positive impact of the rise in health infrastructure. According to it, the number of total human resources delivering basic health services stood at 32,798 this year, whereas it was 32,815 last year.

Likewise, the number of schools in the country grew by 1,848 over the past one year. Of the new schools, the number of primary schools grew by 731. If data of the Survey is true, 118,350 fresh students enrolled in the primary level education this year alone.

As private sector ventured aggressively in the telecommunications sector, 1,308,552 telephone lines of various technologies were distributed in the country during the year. This raised the number of telephone subscribes to 7.61 million and jacked up telephone density to 27.70 percent.

Despite less than expected level of development spending, the survey says that the government added 110 kilometers of new roads in the national road network during the year. The fresh constructions increased the total stretch of the road network to 20,138 kilometers.

Nepal imported 684 million kilowatt hour electricity from India over the seven months of 2009/10, compared to 356 million kilowatt hour of the previous year. Still the country failed badly to match electricity supply with demand. As a result, Nepalis continued to suffer the ill-fate of living in darkness.

Survey says 70 MW of electricity produced from Mid-Marsyangdi has been added to the national grid of late, meaning people will find some relief from protracted power outage in months to come.

The protracted load-shedding, labor stirs, general strikes and deteriorated law and order situation, which together eroded competitiveness of Nepali goods, caused exports to decline by over 9 percent.

Poor industrial security continued to drive the investors away, even as the existing export industries operated with highly underutilized capacity. Imports, on the other hand, soared sharply amid rising disposable income.

The survey estimates Nepal to receive Rs 224.29 billion in remittances. Despite this, country´s balance of payment deficit will hover high at around Rs 20 billion, dragging foreign currency reserve down to Rs 253.36 billion from Rs 280 billion of the last fiscal year.

Source: http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=20917