Average Nepali consumers spend a significant chunk of their income on food (an estimate says almost 57 percent, which is quite high by every standards). However, despite paying an exorbitant sum on foodstuffs, thanks to the ineffective government that cannot check inflation or anything else for that matter, we are forced to consume adulterated foodstuffs. Vegetables and fruits are found to have been either colored or containing chemicals that are harmful to health, bottled water are undrinkable and even the lentils used to make soup (daal) to be consumed with Nepal´s national food, daal-bhaat, are found to have been polished black.
Cooking oil has traces of palm oil and what not, and milk that is consumed mostly by children, sick and the elderly contains caustic soda. Everyday, we are consuming harmful chemicals that are severely affecting our health, but the government and its inspection agency, the Department of Food Technology and Quality Control, do nothing except carry out raids in some stores once or twice a year and leave it at that.
What is more depressing is that those arrested for food adulteration only get a maximum of two years of sentence or fine or both, and amazingly enough the fine amount has not been stated in the law. Considering the punishments for the same offense in other countries, including our neighbors, that is just a slap on the wrist. Forget foodstuffs, most of the drugs sold in the country are either counterfeit or substandard. And nobody does anything about it.
The so-called civil society is quiet on this issue that is more important than having a constitution on time. Let me be very honest, I would choose health over constitution and other abstract rights anytime and although concerned about politics, I am more concerned about my kidneys and heart and the well-being of my family and friends. I would have no qualms to give up on certain democratic rights in exchange for the assurance that my ageing parents would get good medical care and that those I care about can live healthily.
Bureaucrats and politicians too seem to do nothing to mete out the strictest of punishment to those business-houses found adulterating foodstuffs. And why should they when they receive hefty bribes from the corporate-houses adulterating foodstuffs, which in turn allows them to consume safer imported foodstuffs— no local dairy stuff for them, they can buy imported Red Cow Milk and Austrian, French and Swiss cheese available in the Valley´s departmental stores; no locally produced cooking oil for them as they can afford to buy the ones imported from Singapore and Malaysia or if he/she happens to have a sophisticated taste, can buy olive oil imported all the way from Italy; and no undrinkable water for them as they can afford to install costly state-of-the-art water purifiers in their kitchens.
But we, the average Nepalis, cannot afford such luxuries and as such everyday we are forced to consume foodstuffs that we know are harmful to our health. Being fatalists, we have resigned to our fate and every day we bear the unbearable, endure the unendurable and eat the inedible.
Being fatalists, we have resigned to our fate and every day we bear the unbearable, endure the unendurable and eat the inedible.
Perhaps, our new prime minister, Baburam Bhattarai, can provide us with some hope and relief by breaking the politicians-businessmen-bureaucrats nexus and by making sure that we get to eat edible stuff. Stricter and harsher penalties to those risking our lives in danger everyday cannot wait as each day the nation is getting sicker and weaker. Let me end this with a question to PM Bhattarai: Do you have what it takes to make us a healthy and livable nation or will you too be only paying lip-service like your predecessors?
trailokyaa@yahoo.com
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