In a bid to alleviate the coronavirus crisis in the country, the Nepali Government has decided to allow the production of essential products if the concerned industries meet certain conditions.
The ‘COVID-19 Prevention and Control High-Level Coordination Committee’ meeting took this decision to ease the supply of essential products and resume important development projects.
Industries manufacturing food products and other essential items can resume their production by deploying local workers while meeting health standards, said Finance Minister Yubaraj Khatiwada.
In the same line, large infrastructure projects like Tamakoshi Hydropower Project and Melamchi Drinking Water Project can function with staff already stationed in the project site.
[MUST READ: Nepal Takes 15 Decisions to ‘Fight’ Socio-economic Impacts of ‘COVID-19’]As this is the time for harvesting winter crop and sowing summer crop, the concerned farmers can carry out the activities using local and family workers without employing outside workers.
Moreover, the government has decided to ease the movement restrictions on the transportation vehicles ferrying daily essentials including food, medicine and fuel.
Even the industries producing non-essential products can resume operations by meeting the conditions, said Minister Yubaraj.
However, the committee decided to continue with the decision to keep people struct at border points in quarantine for 14 days.
So far, Nepal has reported six COVID-19 infection cases. However, the country has not yet witnessed local transmission of the novel coronavirus.
As of today, the coronavirus has infected 1,020,480 people while claiming 53,326 lives globally.