TOURIST ARRIVALS CROSS 400,000 MARK IN FIRST 11 MONTHS

By Bhola B Rana

Kathmandu, 2 Dec.: Tourist arrivals in the first 11 months of 2010 crossed the 400,000 mark indicate a revival of the tourist industry in the last four years after the peace agreement between seven parliamentary parties and Maoists.
Altogether 412,446 arrivals were recorded until November 2010, Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) said.
In 1999, altogether 421,243 tourists arrived and visitor arrivals as the 10-year people’s war progressed.
The economy collapsed and it still hasn’t completely recovered with Nepal still in the category of the least developed countries.
Figures released Wednesday indicate the industry has recovered as Nepal attempts to draw more visitors during the Visit Nepal Year in 2011.
“We are expecting that tourists’ movement will set a new record this year,” said Aditya Baral of NTB.
When final arrival figures for December are in, the 1999 arrival
record will be shattered.
But the industry is still hit by repeated bandhs or strikes by political parties called to push their agendas despite assurances to refrain from strikes.
Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) hasn’t repeated benefits and it seeks to recover from repeated interferences.
More foreign carriers are flying in with increasing arrivals but NAC, without with only two Boeings to operate international flights, struggles to
remain afloat.
NAC survives on revenue earned by servicing 28 foreign carriers at Tribhuvan International Airport.
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GOLD CROSSED RS 40,000 MARK

Kathmandu, 2 Dec.: Gold price crossed the Rs 40,000 per tola mark Wednesday.
The yellow metal fetched Rs 40,000 per tola with a price increase of Rs 365 in the midst of the marriage season.
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BLUEPRINT TO BRING PLA INTO COMMAND CHAIN
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Kathmandu, 2 Dec.: A day after the appointment of its coordinator, the Special Committee Secretariat has initiated discussion over an action plan that will enforce the government’s supervision over the Maoist combatants living under the UN monitoring by the end of this month. Coordinator of the 12-member body retired Lieut. Gen. Balananda Sharma handed over a preliminary plan of action to Chief Secretary Madhav Ghimire on Wednesday. The action plan aims to detach the former rebel soldiers from the chain of command of the Maoist party by the end of December, Sharma told the Post.

The plan of action has asked the government to make immediate arrangement for the recruitment of 154 retired personnel of different security agencies for enforcing the Special Committee’s supervision at the Maoist cantonment sites. As per the plan, 7 ex-security personnel will be deployed at each of the seven main cantonment sites to monitor the weapon storage containers and five personnel will be stationed for supervising each of the satellite cantonments.

According to a source, a 24-hour situation monitoring and operation centre will be installed at the Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction to keep the cantonments under the government’s surveillance and carry out necessary instructions. Four representatives each from the Nepal Army, Nepal Police, Armed Police Force and People’s Liberation Army will maintain round the clock vigilance at the 28 cantonment sites from the centre.

The action plan has also proposed shifting the regional cantonment management office located currently at the district headquarters of the main cantonment sites. The office will have to submit its daily, weekly and fortnightly reports on the overall situation of the cantonments to the secretariat. This has been already stipulated in the directives related to the supervision, command and control and code of conduct endorsed by the special panel on Sept. 17.

It has also asked the government to arrange 18 civil servants led by Joint Secretary at the secretariat and 5 civil servants in each of the main cantonment sites to look after the logistics.

Earlier Nepal Peace Trust Fund had agreed to finance the Secretariat. The multi-donor fund created by the government with the support of the UN has committed Rs. 100 million for the secretariat.

On Wednesday, Sharma intimated details of the proposed action plan with other secretariat members. He has requested Maoist representative Chandra Prakash Khanal to consult with the party leadership so that the plan can be finalised during the UN Under-Secretary General of Political Affair B Lynn Pascoe’s visit to Nepal.

“If the proposal of recruitment and infrastructure is endorsed by the government this week, we can establish the command of the Special Committee over the cantonments within this month,” said Sharma. “We are working to ensure that the Special Committee takes the command over the cantonments two weeks before the departure of UNMIN.” Another member of the secretariat Deepak Prakash Bhatta said the plan will be implemented once the Maoist representatives consent to it. “The action plan is under discussion. “We are ready to bring the combatants under the government but the chain of command of the People’s Liberation Army will continue hand in hand unless there is agreement among parties on the modality of integration and rehabilitation,” said Khanal.

“We have no objection to transferring the combatants under the government command and control following a special ceremony to mark the handover. But the Special Committee should fix the date for the handover.”
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JUNKET MANIA OF LEADERS
Kathmandu, 2 Dec.: Brushing off the present political deadlock at home, political leaders are continuing to leave for abroad one after another.

A day after caretaker Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal left for Cambodia, his party’s chief Jhala Nath Khanal walked in his footsteps. On Thursday night, Khanal left for Brussels to attend a meeting of labour parties for a week. He is accompanied by politburo member Prakash Jwala and Krishna Chandra Sharma.

Their visit comes after President Dr. Ram Baran Yadav and Speaker Subash Nembang raised their eyebrows over increasing foreign junkets of politicians. Yadav and Nembang have been urging leaders to focus on consitution writing, peace process and new government formation quiting foreign trips.

Leaders have also been told to resume Parliament session and elect a new prime minister, but such requests fall on their deaf ears. “The president has expressed his displeasure with the prime minister over his foreign visit, but to no avail,” said President’s Press Advisor Rajendra Dahal.

Six months have elapsed since the term of the Constituent Assembly was extended by a year, but consitution drafting process is still moving at snail-pace. So much so that a new government has not replaced the caretaker government even within four months.

After UML senior leader KP Sharma Oli left for Cambodia to attend the Sixth International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP), the prime minister flew to attend the same function.

The foreign trip spree continues. A 15-member political delegation comprising leaders of the five major parties are leaving for Sweden on Saturday to learn about statute writing process at the invitation of Idea International, an INGO.

Maoist Vice-Chairman Baburam Bhattarai and Standing Committee member Barshaman Pun; Nepali Congress (NC) leaders Bimalendra Nidhi, Shekhar Koirala, Pushpa Bhusal and Chakra Bastola; and UML General Secretary Ishwor Pokharel and Pradeep Gywali, among others, will stay in Sweden for a week to learn about statute writing process. Interestingly, a few among them are not Constituent Assembly members.
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400% INCREASE IN ENERGY DEMAND




Kathmandu, 2 Dec.: Despite yawning economic growth rates, Nepal´s energy demand is projected to increase four folds over the next 20 years, stated National Energy Strategy (NES) 2010, Bikash KC reports in Republica.

The projected demand, estimated on the assumption that the country´s economic growth will remain at 5.6 percent on average till 2030, might go up if the country achieves higher growth rates, NES underlined.

Nepal´s economic growth rate was 3.5 percent last year, much lesser than the projected growth of 5.5 percent.

The strategic policy paper prepared by Water and Energy Commission Secretariat (WECS) aims to meet the growing demand by generating hydroelectricty and reduce the dependence on bio mass and fossil fuels. It has envisioned that by 2030 dependency over bio mass will be reduced by 33 percent.

This reduction is likely to decrease the rural households´ reliance on firewood thereby trimming down the detrimental effects on the environment.

At 86 percent, bio-fuel still commands the lion´s share of the total energy demand. Fossil fuel, likewise, consists of 11 percent of the national energy demand. Hydropower and renewable energy make up 1.8 and 1 percentages of energy demand respectively. NES has also projected that the demand for hydropower energy will reach 12,000 MW by 2030. This implies that power generation endeavors will have to make significant strides by the next 20 years.

Iswar Singh Thapa, Joint-secretary at the WECS told Republica that the projection made by the strategic paper is a conservative estimate and was quick to add that total energy demand might scale up rapidly if the economy grows more than 5.6 percent.

The NES also warned that the entire economy of the country might plunge into a state of stagnancy if it fails to meet the energy demand. The strategy has focused more on the generation of hydropower and the use of clean and renewable energy instead of bio mass and fossil fuels.

Highlighting the possible impacts of high dependency on bio-fuel, Thapa said that if we continue to use bio mass, future generations might have to witness greater level of deforestation.

And fossil fuels import has already been bleeding the national economy with increased dependency on third countries. The NES also projects the dependency on fossil fuels to rise by 14 percent. WECS officials opine that hydropower must be made leading source of energy to decrease fossil fuels consumption.

Asked on whether energy consumption could be reduced in the event of low hydropower generation, WECS officials argued that economic development of a country is measured by energy consumption of its citizens.

NES has specific data that energy consumption in China, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka per person per year are 52, 22 and 21 Gigajoules respectively. However, energy consumption per person per year in Nepal is only 14 Gigajoules.


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