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The ease with which Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has been dealing with Nepal’s two all-important neighbors in recent times is indicative of two things. One, it sug­gests a level of diplomatic acumen and strategic vision that is rarely seen in a Nepali prime minister. Oli has been able to take both Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping into confidence, a gargantuan achieve­ment for the prime minister of a country that has always felt itself stretched in that age-old geopolitical tug-of-war. Part of this confidence must come from Oli’s command of a government with a two-thirds majority. Partly, it can be argued, one thing Oli has never lacked is confidence, which he has now carried over in his foreign policy dealings.

Two, PM Oli’s relatively smooth foreign policy ride is also reflective of the recent thawing of relations between India and China. Modi and Xi seems to have developed a rare camaraderie as they see the rationale for greater cooperation in light of the increasingly protectionist tendencies of the US. India is far from assured that the mercantilist America under Donald Trump can be relied on to safeguard its stra­tegic interests, which in turn has brought it closer to China. Perhaps, then, India and China have agreed on greater coop­eration in South Asia, including in Nepal?

On June 20, Chinese President Xi, in his meeting with PM Oli in Beijing, said he was confident the Chinese rail would soon come to Kathmandu. (The feasibility study for the Kath­mandu-Kerung section of the proposed Nepal-China railway is to be completed by August.) On being invited by Oli to come visit Nepal, Xi accepted the invitation, saying that the exact dates would be decided on the basis of bilateral consul­tations. A host of other long-term bilateral agreements were also signed during Oli’s Beijing stay.

And yet the Indian media, which used to blow hot and cold over any kind of rapprochement between Nepal and China, has this time mostly chosen to stay quiet on Oli’s China visit. The Indian media seems to have internalized the not-so-sub­tle message from the South Block that the old anti-China bias be set aside for time being.

Perhaps PM Oli deems himself capable of extracting bene­fits from the recent thaw in India-China ties. He just might but he should tread carefully. Historically, in a battle among big powers for geopolitical supremacy, the interests of smaller countries are often ignored, or badly trampled upon. This has been as true in South Asia as it has been in the South China Sea.

The FIFA World Cup, the world’s biggest sporting event, is a big deal in Nepal. Whole streets have morphed overnight into makeshift Brazils, Argentinas and Spains. People can be seen going about their lives in the jerseys of their favorite teams. With live screenings, restaurants are doing a roaring business. Newspapers and TV channels are filled with endless news of Lionel Messi and Harry Kane.

There are indeed millions of die-hard World Cup aficionados in Nepal. Then there is another group of people who are perhaps even more interested in this quadrennial sporting extravaganza: the gamblers.

Sports betting is an established practice in the developed world but in the Indian subcontinent it is relatively new, and illegal. Nonetheless, thousands of Nepalis have wagered their money on the teams they fancy, despite the Kathmandu Chief District Officer’s clear warning before the World Cup that anyone involved in gambling would be penalized. Nor has the arrests of those involved in the Indian Premiere League bookmaking back in May deterred them. 

APEX reporters visited some suspected “gambling dens” of Kathmandu to find out more. Sports bars, restaurants, pubs and even small coffee shops and tea houses have become meeting points for these gamblers and bookies. On our expedition, we found gamblers staking just Rs 500 a game to high rollers betting hundreds of thousands. The bookies, for their part, came from all walks of lives, some temporarily taking up betting to make quick money, others earring a living out of it.

Full story on Sunday

The ruling Communist Party of Nepal has repeatedly expressed its commitment to battling car­tels and syndicates in every sector. It has done a few things too. The registration of various transport cartels has been cancelled. The syn­dicate involved in exploiting Malay­sia-bound Nepali laborers has been busted. The government also seems to be getting tough on the syndicates on daily edibles. And yet most peo­ple seem unsatisfied, or unsure of the government intent. “The government is advertising that the syndicates in different sectors have been broken. But the reality is that most consumers are yet to see any tangible change in their daily lives,” says Jyoti Baniya, a senior advocate and President of the Forum for Protection of Consumer Rights Nepal.

The battle against the syndi­cates began in April 2018 with the issuance of the Transport Manage­ment Directive that threatened to break transport monopolies. The government decision was met with massive protests of transport entrepreneurs amassed under the umbrella organization of the Federa­tion of Nepalese National Transport Entrepreneurs Association.

Unlike what happened in former times, the government of the day did not budge to this pressure tactic. After making various arrests and cancelling the route permits of the protesting companies, the trans­port federation backed off and new bus companies were added on the Araniko Highway, which had been at the heart of the power struggle between the government and the transport syndicates.

Subsequently, Mayur Yatyat, Sajha Yatayat, City Metro, Mahanagar Yatayat, Shiva Darshan, Madhya Upatyaka and Annapurna received ‘direct permits’ from the govern­ment and have since started their services. “But these buses are not enough to meet the high demand,” says Baniya. The consumer rights activist believes that many more transport companies need to be introduced to completely do away with the syndicates in the sector.

Moreover, the government intent to take on transport syndicates has been a suspect following some questionable transfers of the bureaucrats involved in recent syn­dicate-busting activities.

Manpower mess

The government recently can­celled the registration of a few com­panies that had created a syndicate for Malaysia-bound workers.

Since 2013, four different compa­nies—the One Stop Solution (OSC), the Malaysia VLN Nepal Pvt. Ltd, the GSG Services Nepal, and MiGram—had formed a syndicate that together earned Rs 4.6 billion on the pretext of providing medical checkups, visa stamping, security clearance, pass­port collection and online registra­tion services to the Malaysia-bound laborers. On assuming office, the Minister of Labor, Employment and Social Security Gokarna Bista swiftly revoked their license and had those who had restricted free competition for bio-metric health checkups of migrant workers arrested.

Manpower company operators, however, believe the government acted in haste. “The companies involved were established in coor­dination with the Malaysian govern­ment. Shutting them down without proper homework could affect thou­sands of Nepali workers set to leave for Malaysia,” says one such opera­tor on the condition of anonymity.

“The government always attacks us without justification. We are a remittance-based economy and without recruitment agencies like us handling the demand and supply of workers, how does the government expect to increase remittance?” he asks. This manpower operator says he alone spent over two months and around Rs 5 million to create demands for Nepali workers in Malaysian compa­nies, to no avail.

Having set a strong precedent in the case of Malaysia, Nepal could be forced to get tough on labor export to other Gulf countries as well. Emulating Malaysia, Qatar, another big destination for Nepali migrant workers, is preparing to install a ‘one-door mechanism’ of its own to hire workers from Nepal and seven other countries. Qatar plans to open a private recruitment company that will take care of all migrant labor-related issues, from recruitment to departure. The extra costs will undoubtedly be passed on to the laborers applying to go to Qatar. Government officials declined to comment when APEX wanted to know if the government would also look to get tough on the prospective suppliers of manpower to Qatar.

Fruits of labor

Cartels are also responsible for artificially inflating the prices of daily commodities. Take the case of fruits and vegetables. The two main wholesale fruits and vegeta­bles markets in Kathmandu—Kali­mati and Balaju—have drawn the government’s attention following complains of irregular and unscien­tific pricing there.

Minister for Agriculture Chakra Pani Khanal made a surprise inspec­tion of the Kalimati market this week and identified various cartels. “We have shortlisted 434 businessmen who are involved in creating a syn­dicate in the vegetable market,” says Bomlal Giri, media coordinator for minister Khanal. “We have issued them stern warnings and have asked them to furnish clarifications.”

One example of the syndicates operating in Kalimati wholesale market is the one related to rent of the stalls there. The ministry found that a few businessmen have been occupying the same stalls for over 15 years. These businessmen pay around Rs 8,000-10,000 in rent to the market operator while they sublet the same space for up to Rs 200,000. This naturally translates into inflated end prices for the final consumers, much to their chagrin.

“I have been in the business of selling vegetables for a year now but I still have not been able to find the logic behind the pricing,” says Avilash Pantha, a shopkeeper who runs a vegetable store in Ranibari, Kathmandu. “The prices are raised in the wholesale markets but it is us, retail shopkeepers, who have to face the wrath of the customers.”

Minister Khanal’s visit to the Kali­mati market was followed by pro­tests by local businessmen, along with threats of imminent strikes. “But the ministry is ready to take them all on,” said a source at the agriculture ministry. In fact, with the help of the home ministry, the ministry of agriculture is planning to remove middlemen in vegetable markets across the country.

All in all, the all-powerful left gov­ernment has made some right nois­es and taken some bold decisions. But again, unless these cartel- and syndicate-busting measures trans­late into lower costs and ease of access for end consumers, they will be meaningless. That, in the end, will be the real test of the popularity of Oli government.

Over the past 16 years, each one of the mountain expeditions in Nepal has suc­cessfully reclaimed the $4000 (in the case of Everest, and $3,000 in the case of other mountains over 8,000m) deposited with the Department of Tourism. This means our mountains are spotlessly clean, as a mountain expedition forfeits the deposit if it is found to have littered a mountain. But as there is little monitoring of the activ­ities of mountain expeditions, this legal pro­vision of monetary fines has failed to deter mountaineers from polluting the mountains they are climbing.

As a result, the piles of garbage on Nepali mountains have been mounting, even though there is no hard data on how much garbage is actually out there. “But there surely is a lot of it,” says Nga Tenji Sherpa, a regular mountain climber.

There is a provision whereby every climber has to bring back eight kilograms of garbage to the base camp. A government liaison officer sta­tioned at the base camp is supposed to ensure that the mountaineers are doing so. But most of the times these officers are not even present at the base camps.

“There is now no alternative to banning expe­ditions on polluted mountains like Everest and Manaslu for, say, five years and start cleaning them up,” says Maya Sherpa, the president of Everest Summiteers Association. “Otherwise the government could lose all the revenues it currently earns from mountaineering.”

This year, a lot of garbage has been depos­ited above Everest base camp 2, says Nga Tenji Sherpa. “When I was returning after cresting Everest earlier this month, I found tent clothes, used utensils, gas cylinders, and other plastic and rubber items left behind at various camps.”

There is still a tradition of expeditions bury­ing their wastes under the snow; and the wastes show up as soon as the snow starts melting. “The climbers are supposed to bring back eight kilo waste but it appears that they are doing the opposite: leaving behind eight kilo. No one is monitoring them. In this state, how can our mountains be clean?” he asks.

The Department of Tourism has been return­ing anti-dumping deposits on the basis of rec­ommendations of bodies like the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (in Khumbu) and the Annapurna Conservation Area Project (in Manalsu region). “But these organizations have zero knowledge about whether a partic­ular expedition has adhered to government’s anti-dumping rules,” says Santa Bir Lama, the president of Nepal Mountaineering Association. “Unless these organizations and the offending liaison officers are punished, there is no possi­bility of cleaning up our mountains.”

This climbing season alone, the government generated Rs 380 million in revenues from Everest. Likewise, it earned over Rs 450 million from other mountains. But little of this money is being spent in cleaning up the mountains.

Lack of awareness about the damages caused by the left-behind garbage among mountain­eers and government workers, unaccountable trekking agencies, and poor oversight are responsible for the garbage problem, according to Ram Prasad Sapkota, an information officer at the Department of Tourism.

Besides Everest and Manaslu, the other mountains with documented accu­mulation of garbage are Nangpai, Mustang, Dhaulagiri, Sarewung, Arniko Peak, Makalu, Lhotse and Nuptse.

By CHHETU SHERPA | KATHMANDU