Such a fund would be useful in two ways - pulling in heavy investment in various sectors in Nepal and support government events outside Nepal.
"Whenever there are events, we resort to donation drive," Dil Bahadur Gurung, the president of NRNA´s Germany chapter, told myrepublica.com in Berlin, adding, "If we had a fund, it would be easy to contribute to events held here or elsewhere."
Pointing at the recently concluded Summitteers´ Summit event in Copenhagen in December, Gurung said, "We don´t know what happened to the money we gave to Save the Himalayas fund as there is no system to keep any record."
The NRNs, through individual contribution, had handed over $7,000 to Minister for Forests and Soil Conservation Deepak Bohara during the summitteers´ march. The details of the use of the money has not been made public yet.
The NRN Associations in 16 countries in Europe will take up the issue of a collective fund soon, Gurung said. He said NRN investment could be strengthened through the fund. He was of the view that 25% money from the fund should go for rural reconstruction and other social projects.
Gurung, who is also the President of Nepali Congress´ Europe branch, said efforts are on to talk to leaders of many political parties to "bridge the gap" between NRNs and Nepal government.
He said Nepal government´s ´send home a friend´ campaign was unsuccessful as it lacked planning and Nepal Tourism Board relied "too much" on the embassies for the project. "It was a wonderful idea and we adopted it, but it lost grounds since there was no proper coordination," Gurung, who was an NTB representative in the past, said. He also pointed at chances of funds misuse during such campaigns if NRNs lack a proper mechanism to control it.
Asked to comment on the refugee status of Nepalis who migrated to Germany in huge number since 1992, Gurung said, "We have raised strong concern on re-granting passports to those Nepalis living here as refugees."
The NRNA has been saying that the process to re-issue the passports to illegal migrants should now be simplified. It takes up to nine months for the embassy in Berlin to get them passports. The NRNs are saying that this process should be simplified if they are to return home. Earlier, no passports were issued if a person did not have a valid visa.
The inflow of Nepali students to Germany has significantly gone up over the years due to German government´s free education policy in state-run schools. The number of Nepalis in Germany has reached over 8,000. "But hardly any student who comes here wants to go back home," Gurung said.
With a work permit of 300 hours a year or 15 hours a week, students make good money in Germany and face little problem in comparison with students in other Europeans countries. They thus prefer to stay back.
NRNs have also been voicing for dual citizenship and are now planning to re-strengthen this campaign. "The government must provide us with duel citizenship so that both sides benefit," Som Nath Sapkota, President of NRNA, Denmark, told myrepublica.com in Copenhagen. He said it is the "basic right" of every NRN child to get a dual citizenship. "The issue is closely related to national identity," Sapkota said.
akanshya@myrepublica.com
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