Nepal plans to ease lockdown, restart economy

Nepal's Ministry of Health and Population is charting out plans to ease the nationwide lockdown imposed in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, in a bid to gradually restart the stalled economy, according to  a media reort.

If the recommendations of the Ministry are adopted, 77 districts of the country would be divided into three clusters of red, yellow and green, depending on population density, geography, linkage to international border and number of coronavirus cases, The Himalayan Times said in the report on Friday.

Districts that fall under yellow and green zones will see relaxation in restrictions, whereas areas categorised as red zones will continue to remain shut, it added.

The Ministry has started preparing modalities to ease the lockdown based on the instruction given by the High-Level Coordination Committee for the Prevention and Control of COVID-19 led by Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Ishwar Pokhrel.

"We are still working on these modalities. Nothing has been finalised yet," said Roshan Pokharel, chief consultant at the Ministry.

The federal government enforced nationwide lockdown in Nepal on March 24 to prevent the spread of COVID-19 which has so far infected 59 people with no deaths.

Since then, almost all economic activities have come to a grinding halt, inflicting billions of rupees of losses on businesses and rendering many jobless.