Reviewing the Rupee crunch situation

The recent Rupee Crisis in Bhutan has left many Bhutanese worried. The government’s ban and restriction on the rupee was very sudden and hit the Bhutanese market bad. People now started looking for an alternate source to earn rupees. In such times, some bad guys took advantage of the situation; Royal Monetary Authority should not have made it like INR 10,000 for anyone holding Bhutanese citizenship identity card. This has lead to thriving black market. Some people waited all day in Bank of Bhutan to get their share of Rs. 10,000 they did not need only to be sold to the next person at Nu.  10,200/- or more.

Personally I am very worried. For now I have no use of Indian currency but I have a brother who’s going to college in India soon. What then? I started worrying. The rupee crunch situation is giving me sleepless nights too. I can’t ask my brother to email me an invoice for every item he purchased. Similarly, many people are worried like me. However, the better side to this crisis is perhaps it’s time for us Bhutanese to wake up to the alarm and review the situation. It has happened because we are heavily dependent on the Indian government. Why buy vegetables from India when we grow vegetables ourselves? Farmers in my village have acres of barren wetland because the cost of cultivation is much higher than its produce. Bhutanese vegetables fetch no money because Bhutanese people prefer to buy chemically-preserved fresh vegetables imported from India. Some say Bhutanese potatoes are exported to India at say Nu. 10/- per kg, the same potatoes are preserved in India with chemicals in a huge storage reserves in Falakata. And the very same potatoes are sold back to Bhutan in winter season at Nu. 15 per kg. Now the question is why buy back our potatoes at Nu. 5 a kilogram loss? What we need is storage facility, we have our own potatoes.

We are self reliant if we encourage our Bhutanese farmers to grow our own food.  Why not build storage house in every region/district and buy vegetables from our farmers and sell to the civil servants, corporate and private employees. If the rates are fixed and subsidized price I don’t think anything will be costly. If we utilize our barren land and put ban to Indian vegetables not only will Bhutan be self-reliant but rural-urban migration would reduce too with our farmers sticking to their base.

Being a bank employee with all loans suspended, I’m scared about my future. Though recession or downsizing has not really happened to Bhutan yet but we should always remain prepare for the worst. Perhaps it’s time to mull over an alternate source of bread earning.

Let us all take a small step toward self-reliance. Let us not import non-essentional items from outside. Let us buy vegetables from Bhutanese farmers and let us not purchase a posh car only to be bumped by other reckless drivers. Let us not give back the Indian currency given to us as grant by the Indian government.

Camping of the Year

This year’s camping was perfectly preplanned. We had long discussions about the timing and the menu and in the end everything went according to our plan. It was last weekend we some 40 of us decided to take a break from hectic work and venture out into the wild. It was truly an adventure and we had loads of fun.

We divided ourselves into 2 batches; morning and evening batches. The morning batch went to the camping spot early Saturday morning to pitch the tents and do other preparations and others stayed behind in office to provide support for the non-technical employees of our organization. The real fun started when I was caught by traffic police for over-speeding. No amount of pleading with them had any outcome. Police officials claimed that I was driving at 72 Km/hr and I was fined for infringement of traffic rules. I was then issued a yellow slip and they ceased all my documents.

However, that encounter didn’t stop me from having fun. I had a marvelous time at the camp site. Well when we reached the spot it was perfect for camping and picnic. The place has water source and electricity too. Firewood was fetched by one local man and we paid him. So basically we had no problem whatsoever.

With huge budget under our belt we had so many choices in the menu. Dinner wasn’t a grand festive because people were more interested in wine and dancing. Hard drinks, wine, brandy and juice were in abundance and there were so many half-empty wine bottles lying around the picnic spot.  Dancing after drinks was outrageously interesting. Even the simplest of simple guys were shaking their bodies to the tune of music. There were only few of us who did not drink and I was one of them initially. However, I found not boozing very dull and boring so I made a bucket of punch to get myself and others drunk. That really got into me and I was flat for the rest of the evening.

Morning found us all dull and back-to-ourselves. Few guys were having hang-over of the night and grumpy and by themselves. Few of us did the cooking and others washed their cars. Lunch with countless menus was mostly wasted. Few girls gave lots of cooked-meat to stray dogs. After lunch we wrapped up the party, most were in hurry to leave for home and some were having tough time with hangover.

The IT&FCU camping was fun. The only obstacle was a guy bumped his car on a tree trunk and my little brush up with the traffic police. Though the hang-over from the camping still persist and throbbing head pain won’t go away, I’d relive the moment if I had to.