WITHOUT F EAR OR FAVOUR Nepal’s largest selling English daily Vol XXVIII No. 63 | 8 pages | Rs.5 O O Printed simultaneously in Kathmandu, Biratnagar, Bharatpur and Nepalgunj 32.5 C 7.5 C Tuesday, April 28, 2020 | 16-01-2077 Nepalgunj Jumla With everyone forced indoors and online Factions fail to see by the lockdown, eye to eye, leaving Oli cases of cybercrime are increasing in a tenuous position Police ask individuals to take precautions to protect in the ruling party their data and identities online as criminals have After failing to reach a deal with the Madhav Nepal faction, the more time on their hands. prime minister will now face the Secretariat and the Standing ADITI ARYAL & SHUVAM DHUNGANA Committee, both of which are allied against him. KATHMANDU, APRIL 27 TIKA R PRADHAN When the lockdown started on March KATHMANDU, APRIL 27 24, Anoushka Pandey had already been on the receiving end of pro- Marathon meetings between the various fac- longed abuse from her partner’s for- tions in the Nepal Communist Party on mer girlfriend for four months. Every Monday failed to find common ground, indi- day, she received messages, audio and cating that the ongoing tumult within the video calls, and voice messages on ruling party is likely to continue. Facebook and Instagram from fake After a failure to reach a deal among for- profiles created to harass her. But mer UML leaders, Prime Minister KP when the lockdown forced everyone Sharma Oli is now under great pressure to indoors, the frequency of those posts confront party leaders at the coming began to increase. Secretariat and Standing Committee meetings. “I knew that the lockdown would According to insiders, senior leader have been an ideal time for my harass- Madhav Kumar Nepal now holds the key, as POST FILE PHOTO ers to increase their torment, and I party chair Oli is in a minority among the KP Sharma Oli was getting anxious,” Pandey, a party’s lawmakers and has also lost his grip 24-year-old who works in the develop- on both the Secretariat and the Standing held on Tuesday, which will decide the date ment sector, told the Post. Committee. for the Standing Committee meeting. When the harassment increased sig- In a bid to strike a deal with Nepal, Oli’s Despite his failure to deliver on the gov- nificantly in the first week of the representatives on Monday held hours-long ernance front, Oli had not been pulled up by lockdown, Pandey decided to reach talks with the Nepal faction. party leaders in the last two-and-a-half years out to Body and Data, a digital advoca- “We clearly told Oli’s side that the onus for of his enture. But Oli got more than he bar- cy organisation that works to make a way out of the current crisis lies on the gained for by pushing through two ordinanc- the internet safer for all users. On prime minister,” said Raghuji Pant, a es last week. their advice, she outed her abuser on Standing Committee member who was rep- As though pressure from the faction led by Instagram and filtered her list of fol- resenting the Nepal side at the meeting. the other party chair, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, lowers. This stopped the abuse but Deputy Prime Minister Ishwar Pokhrel, was not enough, Oli was roundly censured Pandey says she hasn’t recovered fully party general secretary Bishnu Poudel, by his former UML comrades, including from the mental agony the experience Standing Committee members Shankar Nepal, Bamdev Gautam and Jhala Nath caused her. Pokhrel and Pradip Gyawali from Oli’s side, Khanal. The country has been under a strict and Standing Committee members Surendra Ever since he was forced to withdraw the lockdown for over a month now. The Pandey, Bhim Rawal and Pant were present two controversial ordinances, Oli has been prohibitions on all public movement at the meeting from Nepal’s side. trying to convince Nepal using his two confi- have meant that everyone is stuck The Oli faction proposed calling meetings dantes—Ishwar Pokhrel and Shanker indoors with ample time on their of the Secretariat and Standing Committee Pokhrel. hands, which is leading to a rise in only after resolving the ongoing dispute in Pressure is now mounting on Oli to choose cybercrimes, according to the Nepal the party, but the Nepal faction rejected the between the prime ministership and party Police. proposal. chair. Oli, according to leaders, is prepared “During the lockdown, most people “They [the Oli faction] did not come up to hand over the party reins to Nepal, but are at home and are constantly on with any concrete proposal for a power-shar- will not be stepping down as prime minister. their computers and on the internet. ing deal, so our side stressed that they call a Nepal has long vocalised his support for This has led to an increase in cases of meeting of the Secretariat and the Standing the ‘one person, one responsibility’ doctrine cybercrimes,” said Senior Committee,” said Beduram Bhusal, a in the party. Superintendent Nabinda Aryal, chief Standing Committee member who has close Nepal might have suddenly become cru- of the Nepal Police’s central cyber relations with Nepal, although he was not cial in intra-party dynamics but he is also bureau. POST PHOTO: SANJOG MANANDHAR present at the meeting. caught between the two chairs. >> Continued on page 5 A man pushing a trolley loaded with water bottles is reflected in a pool at Makkhan in Kathmandu on Monday. A meeting of the Secretariat will now be >> Continued on page 5 Without immediate support, small and medium enterprises on verge of collapse The big employment sector and significant contributor to the GDP rarely features in policy decisions. PRITHVI MAN SHRESTHA enterprises. KATHMANDU, APRIL 27 SMEs have created 2.36 million jobs, according to a study report by Since the lockdown began on the Nepal Rastra Bank. At the end March 24 to contain the spread of of the 2017-18 fiscal year, 275,433 the coronavirus, Rishiram Poudel, registered SMEs contributed 22 proprietor of the Chitwan-based percent to the country’s gross Abiral Hatchery, has just one chore domestic product. to perform everyday—dump his Considering the impact of the chicken eggs. pandemic on businesses, the gov- “I don’t have customers for the ernment, on March 29, had decided chicks that I supply as poultry to postpone the deadline to pay farms are not buying them any- income tax and value added tax by more,” Poudel told the Post over around a month. The usual dead- the phone from Chitwan. line of mid-April has been moved “I have no option than to throw to May 7. The government also away the eggs.” decided that enterprises affected As the lockdown has prohibited by Covid-19 can pay their loan all public movement, including all instalments, also due in mid-April, transportation services, poultry at the end of fiscal year, which is farmers have not been able to buy mid-July. chicks from hatcheries. And sup- POST FILE PHOTO SME entrepreneurs, however, pliers like Poudel have been left Poultry farmers are among the hardest hit during the pandemic. say that the government has yet to with no option than to dump the come up with a stimulus package eggs that his around 17,000 chick- According to the federation, there Rajbhandari, president of the asso- targeted specifically at them. ens lay everyday. is an investment of Rs150 billion in ciation. “Then, there’s debt servic- The Nepal Poultry Federation According to Poudel, who is also the poultry sector. ing and rent.” has made a number of demands, senior vice-president of the Nepal The nationwide lockdown, SMEs employ a lion’s share of including interest waiver for a Hatchery Industry Association, which was extended by 10 days the labour force in the country and year, rescheduling of loans by a hatchery entrepreneurs have been until May 7 on Sunday, has spelled are major contributors to the econ- year, compensation for losses suf- destroying around 45,000 eggs every doom for Nepal’s small and medi- omy, but they often fail to garner as fered during the lockdown, rebate day since the lockdown began. um-sized enterprises (SMEs) like much attention as large businesses in electricity bills by 50 percent, According to the Nepal Poultry poultry farms, hatcheries and res- do in the policy-making discourse and a one-time subsidy on the pur- Federation, the umbrella organisa- taurants. surrounding the economy. chase of chicks for farmers. tion of poultry entrepreneurs, the The poultry sector, and hatcher- Experts say that a failure to sup- For the restaurant sector, poultry sector is losing Rs220 mil- ies by extension, is among the sec- port SMEs could hit the country’s Rajbhandari said they have sought lion every day, which could soon tors most affected— after tourism, economy hard. contributions from the govern- lead to a total collapse of the sector. including hospitality and travel— “SMEs are the largest employ- ment to pay workers’ wages along by the Covid-19 pandemic. ment generators in the private sec- with tax exemptions and interest According to the tor,” said Shankar Sharma, a for- subsidies. Restaurant and Bar mer vice-chair of the National “We can also work out a certain Association of Nepal, the Planning Commission. formula where restaurants bear 33 hospitality sector in “The government must intro- percent of wages while the govern- Kathmandu, Pokhara and duce stimulus packages to resusci- ment contributes 33 percent and Chitwan employs 50,000- tate SMEs as they are the backbone the workers bear the rest,” said 60,000 people.