Gandaki Province industries marred by skilled workers

The Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) has identified a dearth of skilled workers, unavailability of sufficient electricity supply, and limited availability of raw materials as obstructions for the full-fledged operations of industries in the Gandaki Province.

According to the NRB study, the production of most industries in the Province is below fifty percent of their total capacity. The central bank has reported about issues, challenges, and possibilities in the industrial sector. The skilled labor shortage has been assessed as one of the major factors hampering the efficacy of industries in the Province.

As the study says, the industrial sector in the province faces a shortage of workers with the right skills as such workforce required for the industries in the Province is presently abroad for jobs.

One of the major challenges industries in the Province's face is that they need to enhance their competitiveness. Policy-level complexities during seeking permission for the establishment of the industry, its renewal, and making monetary payment are other issues facing the industrial sector, the NRB says.

There lies a need to encourage the implementation of the single-point service and the utilization of information technology to minimize policy-level complexities and to reduce the time and cost. New industries are finding it hard to get a proper location to operate the business due to skyrocketing price of land in the past few years. More, the rise in start-up costs has failed to attract foreign investment. The expected achievement remains unmet due to lack of sufficient power supply, and reliable transport facility.

Besides this, the NRB has pointed out some possibilities for addressing challenges. Industrialization is essential for the building of a sustainable economy and prosperity of the province and cooperating with tourism entrepreneurs and local producers has been stressed while operating agri-based industries as the local community and tourism sectors are the prime consumers of such industries.