She works from five in the morning to seven in the evening, cleaning for a living. She doesn’t remember the last time she took a break. Her hands are perpetually cracked. She’s stopped putting on lotion—it doesn’t seem to help. She makes enough to pay the rent for a two-room flat in Kathmandu and feed her family of four. Her sons attend public school so there are, thankfully, no fees to pay but sometimes she doesn’t have any spare change to give them for snacks. Her eyebrows furrow in worry as she fashions her hair in a top knot and says, “Soon my earnings won’t be enough to keep my family afloat.”
Thirty-four-year-old Kumari Budathoki works at a restaurant but has to supplement that income by cleaning homes in her free time. She often dozes off while having dinner, exhausted after a hard day’s work. She is doing all she can but finds it isn’t enough to provide her family even a half-decent life. Her struggles, she says, would be worth it if there was even a glimmer of hope of a better life. But prices are skyrocketing. Vegetables, oil, and cooking gas are so much more expensive than they were just a few months ago. At this rate, her family might soon need to make do with a meal a day.
Uma Shankar Prasad, economist and member of the National Planning Commission, says inflation always hits daily wage-earners the hardest. The impact has been starkly evident this time as prices have been constantly going up. The reasons for this are many, he says. Production has been steadily declining in Nepal, which has led us to rely heavily on imports. The demand for goods has increased as people have gone abroad and sent money back home. Also, food and petroleum prices have shot up worldwide as the Russia-Ukraine war has disrupted transport channels.
Unfortunately, Prasad sees no immediate salvation for common folks besides spending money only on what’s absolutely necessary. The government, he says, is trying to do exactly that by increasing taxes on luxury products like electronic gadgets and cosmetics and banning the import of many other such items.
Rameshwor Khanal, another economist, says people will feel relief only when the pandemic is completely over, in all parts of the world, and the Russia-Ukraine war comes to an end. Both these things are beyond our control. But he adds, in the meanwhile, ‘money contraction’ might provide some respite. “If the Nepal Rastra Bank can maintain its interest rate at 11 percent for at least another six months or more, that will cool demand as people will want to save,” he explains.
Goma Raut, who runs a small retail store in Kathmandu, says she understands why prices are rising. The world might be reeling from the effects of a pandemic and a war but the effects are even worse in a country like Nepal with little control over its markets. There is a lot of arbitrary pricing. The cost of the same thing often varies from vendor to vendor. Weak monitoring of rules and regulations also means landlords are free to charge as much rent as they want. House rents have been increased randomly citing inflation. “It’s becoming very difficult to work and live in Kathmandu because our expenses have gone up while our incomes have stagnated,” she says.
Raut’s husband earns Rs 15,000 a month. The rent of Raut’s one-bedroom flat in Battisputali—where she lives with her husband and two children—is Rs 10,000. After paying another Rs 8,000 for the shop, the family is already in deficit. The paltry sum that Raut makes from the shop barely covers food and the children’s tuition. “We live a hand-to-mouth existence. I worry what will happen if one of us falls sick and can’t work,” she says. Proper rental and market rules and some government support–free quality education and health insurance, for instance–would considerably ease the sufferings of people like Raut whose incomes fall short of their expenses.
Roshan Koirala works full-time at a flower shop in Jawalakhel, Lalitpur. He is contemplating getting another job as his daily expenses have doubled. He knows he could work himself to the bone but he will still not earn enough to put something aside for emergencies. “I can probably make enough to feed myself and pay rent but what happens if I can’t work?”
Tina Limbu, salesperson, says the same thought keeps her up at night. Her family has had to revise their monthly budget quite a few times in the past few months to figure out where and what to cut back on.
Many daily wage-earners ApEx spoke to confessed to feeling helpless, as there is ‘no system’. People can simply do whatever they want to and get away with it, putting the poor and the powerless at a disadvantage. If the implementation of laws were the same for people of all societal status, they said, things wouldn’t seem as bleak. One of the most common complaints also revolved around all the extra facilities given to government employees. If these were to be minimized, the country could then divert the resources to where they were needed.
Dal Bahadur Khadka and his wife Chari Maya Khadka, who run a small tea-shop in Kathmandu, have decided not to vote in the upcoming elections. Their friends and relatives too have pledged the same. The couple says it doesn’t matter who is in power when nobody will help them. A country’s politics determines its future and ours has, time and again, proved to be unworthy of our trust, says Dal Bahadur. No political party has ever delivered on its promises, adds Chari Maya. The couple feels that inflation has deepened the divide between the haves and have-nots and covertly promoted classism.
“Poverty is an issue that comes up only during elections. Every party has elaborate plans to improve the economy and create more jobs for the needy. But nothing ever comes out of it,” says Chari Maya. She has a heart condition that requires regular medication. And they don’t come cheap. She fears not being able to afford them with how things are going. The government, she says, knows there are many, many people like her and yet “doesn’t do anything”, choosing to let them suffer. “We are the nation’s forgotten people,” she says.
