NEW DELHI, June 24 (AlertNet) - Strike action in Nepal is severely affecting the poor's ability to feed themselves, forcing many to skip meals and scavenge for food or borrow money and sell off assets to survive, the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) said on Wednesday.

Last year, there were 254 days of strikes or 'bandhs' which shut down transport services, government offices, businesses, schools, hospitals and markets. In some cases, there were 100 separate strikes in the same month, according to Nepalbandh.com, a Nepali website which monitors strikes around the country.

It recorded more than 100 strikes in April and 60 in May, with 43 strikes so far this month.

Richard Ragan, head of WFP in Nepal, said the strikes -- which are often politically motivated -- meant that roads were blocked, food was not being transported and people were not able to work, losing essential income and unable to buy provisions.

"The immediate impact of the bandhs is on the poor people in the country," Ragan told AlertNet by telephone.

"It means that people lose a day's wage and can't make money to buy food. Also, their businesses are closed, they can't travel to work, and they don't have access to markets which also means they can't purchase food if they had some money."

He said this was a serious problem in Nepal where the majority of the population spends more than 60 percent of their income on food, compared with the United States where Americans spend slightly more than 10 percent of their income on food.

Nepal, which ranks 142 out of 177 countries on the U.N. 2007/8 Human Development Index, is still reeling from a 10-year conflict that ended in 2006. More than 30 percent of the population live below the poverty line.

The Maoist insurgency killed more than 13,000 people, uprooted hundreds of thousands and devastated the economy of the Himalayan country.

A peace agreement fanned hopes of a rapid increase in production, investment and trade, but critics have blamed the labour strikes and other demonstrations - among other things - for curbing Nepal's economic growth potential.

Gross domestic product (GDP) growth fell from more than 6 percent in 2000 to 2.3 percent in 2007, according to the Asian Development Bank.

Nepal's Chamber of Commerce says between $7 and $14 million is lost in revenues every day there is a general strike.

STRIKE CULTURE

Striking has become so effective and so legitimised that in the past year it has been carried out by local councils, ethnic groups, students, journalists and teachers - often bringing geographical regions or sectors of the economy to a standstill, according to a WFP bulletin issued in March.

At the same time, the scale and prevalence of labour strikes - organised by politically aligned trade unions - are also rising and wreaking havoc on business, the bulletin said.

Days of strikes across the country forced the government to reverse its decision on a fuel price hike in April last year.

Ragan said people were increasingly being coerced into striking, citing reports that those who refused to comply risked damage to their property, injury and even death.

"There is a general state of lawlessness, a lack of law and order, and people are using the threat of strike or bandh or the implementation of bandh to get what they want because it's one of the few instruments that has proven to be effective, at least in the short-term," he said.

Ragan said WFP -- which feeds around 3.5 million people in Nepal -- was operating at only 50 percent of its capacity because of recent the strikes. The WFP -- which has between five and 300 trucks moving around the country at any given time -- depends in general on the commercial sector to move its food but drivers are becoming too scared to carry food during a strike.

"People already exist on razor-thin margins. Strikes are limiting our ability to reach them during critical time periods which is pushing them over the edge," he said.

There were concerns about the security of U.N. staff after strike organisers turned up at a U.N. office in the far west asking staff to close the office and join one particular bandh, Ragan said.

"If it continues to get worse, there will be serious consequences for people whose lives depend on humanitarian assistance," Ragan said.

"Our goal is to help keep people alive and help improve their nutritional status and invest in their livelihoods, but if you see a scenario where your staff is threatened or there are direct attacks on the U.N. then you will have to reassess how you operate in the country."

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