Udayapur, Aug. 23 -- Shankar Thapa, a worker at the venerable Udayapur Cement factory in eastern Nepal, has been surviving for the past 17 months without a salary. "It has become extremely difficult to run the household without a pay," Thapa told Kantipur recently. His children's education has been affected, and he has had to borrow money to meet household expenses. "We have survived on loans for all these months," he said. "Now we are struggling even to put food on the table."

Thapa's plight is shared by hundreds of workers at the state-owned factory, which is struggling to stay afloat amid mounting liabilities, ageing machinery and years of political interference.

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