Nabin Dhungana
June 27, 2021
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Suman Gaudel of Naradevi, Kathmandu, shut his four-year-old grocery named Suman Cold Store in April after the second wave of Covid-19 started in Nepal. He then returned to his ancestral home in Tanahun just a day before the lockdown (prohibitory order) began in the Kathmandu valley.
Gaudel expresses, “ I was already in debt due to the first wave of the pandemic and resultant lockdown. And, this time, I had to shut my shop forever and return home and do farming due to the fear of increasing debt”
He is just one representative. According to the Nepal Retailers Association, the number of people leaving retail businesses during the pandemic is around 1,800.