Prohibitory orders should stay in place until adequate vaccines are made available for a large section of the population
The three major private sector umbrella organisations – Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI), Confederation of Nepalese Industries (CNI) and Nepal Chamber of Commerce (NCC) – have asked the government to extend the deadline for submitting tax filing and tax return details, considering the ongoing prohibitory orders imposed in 46 districts of the country, where cases of the coronavirus have been surging exponentially. Issuing separate press statements on Tuesday, the three private sector umbrella bodies have urged the government to extend the deadline for submitting details of tax revenue and filling taxes to the government.
As per the government's time table, it is mandatory for all businesses to submit the amount of Value Added Tax (VAT), excise duty and advance income tax cuts collected in the previous month by the 25th day of every month. They had also sought similar facility from the government last year when a lockdown was imposed for seven months to break the chains of the coronavirus. Both trade and industries, which had been impacted by the first lockdown, were gradually reviving but have once again been hit hard by the second wave of the pandemic, which has become more contagious than the first one.
The private sector has said production of non-essential goods, trade, business and vehicular movement have been halted due to the second wave of the pandemic, and the employees of the industrial sector have not been able to work properly due to the rising number of corona infections. No one, even the government, knows when the second wave of COVID-19 will subside and when the economic activities will return to normalcy.
Therefore, it is not possible to submit tax returns and pay taxes during the prohibitory orders via online platforms as most of the employees have been forced to stay home, and businesses have also gone down due to the restrictive measures. The business community's demand is justifiable as they have not been able to operate their businesses due to the prohibitory orders. As a result of the second wave of COVID-19, it is not only the private sector but also the government that has incurred heavy losses to the tune of tens of millions of rupees every day.
Besides seeking extension of the deadline to submit the tax returns, the private sector has also sought permission to operate their business activities by allowing the employees and labourers to work at their facilities by adhering to the prescribed health protocols.
While their demand to extend the time for tax filing can be justified, it is not possible to allow them to operate their businesses when the prohibitory orders are in place. The government would not have had to take the harsh measures had the general people sincerely followed the health protocols. There is no alternative to the prohibitory orders until we can inoculate over 70 per cent of the population. But sad to say, we have not been able to vaccinate a large section of the population due to unavailability of the shots in time. The only way to break the chains of the COVID-19 pandemic is to continue with the prohibitory orders until enough vaccines are made available, that too, within a short period of time.
Training midwives
Nepal's maternal mortality rate (MMR) of 239 per 100,000 live births is simply unacceptable, despite a steady decline seen over the decades. It is unfortunate that the country's goal to reduce the MMR to 125 per 100,000 live births in 2020 could not be achieved, which calls for a great number of professionally trained hands to take up delivery cases.
Women in rural Nepal still depend on traditional birth attendants and auxiliary nurse midwives to tend to delivery cases, with the latter taking care of pregnant women right from the beginning of their pregnancy to post-delivery. Thus, the training of professional midwives is an urgent need as they not only save the lives of women and infants but also promote the health and well-being of entire communities.
According to the UNFPA, well-trained midwives could prevent roughly two-thirds of all maternal and newborn deaths. Formal midwifery education at the bachelor's level started in Nepal only in 2016 and has so far produced 14 midwives with many more expected to join in the years to come. The state must recognise their skills and recruit them in the government's health system without delay so that they can be deployed in the rural areas.
A version of this article appears in the print on May 6, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.
