Bhutan’s self-reliance in question

Bhutan as of now is heavily dependent on India for items ranging from matchstick to vehicles to rice, despite Bhutan being agriculturist country. We say, 70% of Bhutan’s population is dependent on agriculture when majority of the population rely on the imported rice from India. What our farmers produce in the country simply isn’t enough for our people.

We have, but few factories in the entire nation. And those factories are not doing well for themselves because they have to compete with the Indian factories with lower rate of products.

The problem could be due to lack of raw materials and market. The Bhutanese market is relatively small and the Bhutanese entrepreneurs are not ready to take up the risk of inflicting the loss. And so we have become dependent on India for all kinds of goods. If the Bhutan-gate in Phuentsholing closes for few months, most Bhutanese people will land up on the streets, because by then the shops would have run out of stocks.

This is a very serious issue. We, as Bhutanese citizens should take up our responsibilities seriously and look into the matter. We should come up with measures to make ourselves self-reliant. We need to come up with factories and industries to overcome the food security in the country.

In India, we hardly notice a foreign car on the streets, no foreign products in the shops, because they believe in producing themselves and buying their own products and this is what is making their economy strong. We Bhutanese, on the other hand, are brand specific and look down upon our own home made products.

We need to encourage our manufacturers and promote our own products. We need to create market for our own goods and buy our products instead of foreign goods. The government needs to minimize the import of foreign products so that we can promote our home grown products. This is the only way we can improve our economy and thereby make our country self-reliant.