As numbed as I am by events of the recent past, an inconspicuous news report in the Kuensel issue of 2nd July, 2022 has been nagging me for days. It simply won’t go away. But I am helpless - my weather-beaten antennae are tuned to ring alarm bells when something out of the ordinary occurs. And, certainly, a drop in inward remittance of over 50% is alarming - in fact terrifying - both in scale and in scope. And why in 2022? I began to examine the matter from all angles - to try and understand what may be causing it.
What is the cause behind more than 50% drop in inward remittances?
The exodus of human capital out of the country has been a source of some worry. The primary concern has been that the country is getting shorn of young and able-bodied youth. But the positive side to the malice has been that the country has recorded inward remittances in the billions. The none-resident Bhutanese have been sending money back home, they have been buying properties and building homes, funding the education of their siblings and generally supporting their families and relatives live an easeful life - through their hard work and earnings abroad. This has been all hunky-dory so far.
In my reading, this trend was indication that Bhutan mattered to them, that their families mattered to them and even more important – it indicated that they would come back home some day - to bask in the accomplishments of their many years of toil in a foreign land.
But now we have to begin to worry: what exactly is causing the drop in remittances – by as much as over 50%?
Is there a dramatic shift in thinking?
Have they decided to park their earnings in the host countries of their domicile, instead of sending it back home?
Are they buying properties outside – instead of in the country of their birth?
Have they decided to take roots and raise families in a foreign land, and not come back to Bhutan?
Or, if none of the above are reasons behind the fall in remittances, have the none-resident Bhutanese found some other channels that are more lucrative than the official channels - to send their earnings back home?
The choice of whether livelihood matters more than life is a choice they have made – but as far as I am concerned, we want the Bhutanese back – we are already so precious few.
I hope the government will institute a study as to why this potentially dangerous trend has taken place. And I pray that this is a one off happenstance - that the trend will reverse in the coming months.