Hira Bahadur Thapa

In fact, not everything is bad arising out of the global health crisis. Although in terms of fatalities and adverse impact on world economy, the COVID-19 has been the most severe crisis in the span of a century. Being unprecedented in the history of mankind, the pandemic has brought opportunities and challenges simultaneously. On optimistic note, our habits have changed due to the SARS CoV-2, which has resulted in the current pandemic. Patience is one of the many virtues that has been learnt. Compelled to remain inside our houses to comply with government-mandated lockdowns for months, we have turned out to be working with greater creativity.
Most of the times, we display impatience. We were forced to be in queue for buying grocery and receiving services from the offices, including banks. Social distancing has now become a norm. We had to restrain ourselves in demanding services as we couldn’t afford to dismiss the health requirements. Our compliance with government-instructed health guidelines, including sanitisation or hand washing, has become our new habit. This has taught us to be civilised and responsible citizens.

Hygiene awareness
In terms of maintenance of hygiene, COVID-19 has been a boon. Using effective hand sanitisers before or after touching any object brought from outside to avoid surface transmission has now become part of daily life which boosts our immunity. Seeing hand sanitisers at different corners of hospitals and in front of the patient’s room in the past especially in the US while visiting new-born babies used to surprise me as I was not fully aware of health risk associated with babies and their mothers because of surface transmission.
When the pandemic hit all countries around the world, it came as a shock to us realising that paper money is the most surface transmission friendly object because it changes hands so fast and so frequently. This reality forced us to change our lifestyle in a more significant manner. While admitting the fact the global health crisis has given us opportunities of learning new things and staying more healthfully, the lockdowns imposed at different times in different cities around the world have exacted heavy tolls on economy. Economic losses are colossal for some countries where efforts to contain the virus have not been as effective as they should have been. Unemployment rates have spiked in commensurate with squeezed economic activities.
Nepal is one of them, a least developed country, aspiring to gain the status of middle-income country in the near future though the expected year of graduation has been extended by the government in view of developmental deficiencies. There are many external reasons for lowering the prospects of economic growth in Nepal but the role of political infighting in particular in the ruling party has been no less disastrous.
Definitively, a great setback is being experienced at a time when the government unleashed an ambitious programme of “Visit Nepal 2020” last year. It was such an embarrassment to Nepal that tourism sector has become the worst affected areas due to pandemic and the government was compelled to cancel all promotional activities to attract as many as two million tourists within the VNY 2020. Unfortunately, the government was compelled to postpone many tourism-related events and activities within some months of the grand inauguration of VNY by the president.
An extended lockdown, though relaxed intermittently, led to the closure of almost all the high standard hotels in the country. The management authorities of Hotel Annapurna announced the shutting down of its activities forcing hundreds into unemployment. The Hotel Hyatt has followed suit. In 5-star hotels workers have been laid off with almost no benefits as the employers have argued that they could not earn for daily operational costs, let alone accumulating profit, as foreign tourists stopped visiting Nepal since March 2020.
During the pandemic, the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal has undertaken some visible steps for promotional expansion of the Tribhuwan International Airport (TIA). This improvement of physical facilities has attracted many. Once we reach the international wing of airport the change becomes visible though the COVID-19 issue has restricted the flow of air passengers drastically and this has transformed the place in terms of crowd management.
Our airport authorities have set the layout in the departure area starting first with the presentation of original RT-PCR COVID-19 test report to the security, whose stamping is followed by luggage screening through X-ray machines. After that we go to the baggage check-in-area and can see the real change where markings are done for social distancing when the passengers make lines for getting their tickets and luggage checked and receiving the boarding passes.

Positive changes
In the immigration queues are well managed by barricades put in front of the immigration desks. The official on duty screens the visa and passport. After passing the security checking of hand carry luggage area, passengers are led to the huge departure lounge. This part of airport looks impressive. All toilets are superbly clean and hand sanitisers are placed at different parts of the lounge. Despite the above positive changes arriving passengers are forced to pass through very crowded baggage claim area. Unless this area is expanded, the crowd management will continue presenting challenges.
To resuscitate the tourism industry among many other things, the timely improvement of TIA is very crucial and the government should not delay the proper fixing of the problems encountered in the complex.

(Thapa was Foreign Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister from 2008-09.)