SWEEPING TRANSFERS IN HOME MINISTRY

KRISHNA BAHADUR MAHARA EFFECTS SWEEPING TRANSFERS IN HOME MINISTRY

Kathmandu, 5 June: Home Minister Krishna Bahadur Mahara, who is also deputy prime minister leading the Maoist team in government, has transferred 40 joint secretaries, including 30 chief district officers (CDOs) to leave his imprint on the ministry.
He earlier overturned a decision of his predecessor, Prime Minister Jhalanath Khanal, to transfer top officials even as he was being sworn in
Basanta Bhattarai has been sent to Immigration Office at Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA); Khadananda Dhakal has been recalled to the ministry of general administration following suspension on charge for involvement in a passport scam.
Mohan Krishna Sapkota, director general department of labour, has been appointed personnel administration at the home ministry from where Prem Rai has gone to reserve pool in ministry of general administration.
Dhruba Prasad Dhakal and Khadga Bahadur Chapagain have been sent to mid-West regional office and eastern region administration office respectively.
Shiva Hari Upadhaya has been sent to western regional administration office in Pokhara and, Prem Bahadur Khapang to far-West region in Far-West regional administrative office, Dipalay.
Kamaleshwor Kumar Sinha has been appointed CDO Kapilvastu, Laxman Kumar Thapa CDO Rupandehil, Birendra Prasad Yadav CDO Dhanusha, and Tara Nath Gautam CAO Parsa
Buddhi Bahadur Khadka has been appointed CDO, Rautahat,. Sashi Shekhar Shrestha CAO, Nawalparasi, Hari Raj Panta CDO Surkhet, Ram Prasad Thapaliya CDO, Sarlahi and Narayan Prasad Bidari CDO Siraha
Bashu Dev Dahal is CDO, Kanchanpur; Gokarna Mani Duwadi CDO, Saptari, Kailash Kumar Bajimaya CDO Kailali and Krishna Chandra Ghimire CDO Banke.
Similarly, Chunamani Sharma has been appointed CDO Sunsari
, Shankar Aryal CDO, Mahottari, Rudra Nath Bashyal CDO Kavre; . Gehenath Bhandari CDO Jhapa, Bir Bahadur Rai CDO Udayapur and Kumar Shestha CDO Dhankuta.



Bhawani Parajuli, Kailash Nath Kharel, Birendra Bahadur Baniya ,Shabhu Prasad Ghimire ,Tej Prasad Paudel, Ram Prasad Ghimire , Narayan Prasad Sanjel and Kali Prasad Parajuli have been deputed to the home ministry


Yadav Prasad Koirala has been sent to the ministry of general administrations, Janmejaya Regmi, department of immigration,
,Lava Raj Shrestha to police office at Kitabkhana, and
Nagendra Jha to the ministry of land reform and management
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20 PERCENT HIKE IN PPA RATE BY NEA

Kathmandu, 5 June: Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has hiked by 20 percent power purchase agreement (PPA) with companies producing electricity up to 25 MG.
NEC now buys electricity at Rs 4 per unit in the wet and Rs, 7 in the winter.
Following the revision, power companies will now get
Rs. 4.80 in the wet and Rs 8.4 per unit in the dry season.
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LIQUIDITY CRUNCH HITS CREDIT SCENE
Kathmandu, 5 June: Bankers blame prolonged liquidity crunch for the present credit crunch in the country, Kuvera Chalise reports in The Himalayan Times.

“The liquidity crunch has forced banks to delay even the already committed loans,” said a member of Nepal Bankers’ Association (NBA).

Contrary to bankers’ expectation that liquidity situation would improve from April, the re still is no reason to cheer at present.

Delayed budget coupled with government inability to spend has caused the liquidity crunch in the financial sector, a banker said, adding that normally banks face tight liquidity situation for two months every year “but this fiscal year, it has prolonged to almost the entire year.”

Due to liquidity crunch, banks are not able to finance automobiles, let alone the productive and housing sectors. The latter was created as a separate portfolio to ease financing for housing developers.

Due to tight liquidity, some 300 vehicles are stranded at Birgunj customs as banks have stopped financing automobiles. “It has also hurt government coffers as automobiles are contribute in a major way to the revenue,” Automobile Dealers Association President Saurav Jyoti said, adding that automobile import has plunged by 40 per cent.

Housing and real estate have also had to bear the brunt of the tight liquidity situation. “In the last seven years, only 33 housing projects were approved,” vice president of Nepal Land and Housing Developers’ Association Om Rajbhandari said, adding that in 2009-10, not a single project was approved due to tight liquidity situation.

However, government officials and the central bank do not agree. “The banks have been lending for longer

period and collecting short term deposits creating a deposit-lending mismatch that is one of the key reasons for tight liquidity,” according to senior economic adviser at the Ministry Keshav Acharya.

The government treasury had Rs 6.47 billion surplus by the ninth month of the current fiscal year, he said, adding that the amount is not that huge, but on top of that banks are buying development bonds but are not interested in repo that could have injected liquidity.

“They have bought Rs 2 billion worth repo, while the central bank had issued Rs 5 billion repo last week,” said central bank spokesperson Bhaskar Mani Gyawali. “Had there been tight liquidity situation, the banks would have bought Rs 5 billion worth repo,” he said, adding that, on the other hand, the central bank received Rs 7 billion worth application for Rs 5 billion worth development bond last week.

Though, bankers are claiming that Credit to Deposit ratio has gone up, central bank governor Yubraj Khatiwada claimed that CD ratio has not gone over the board. “All the indicators including CD ratio of commercial banks are sound,” he said, adding that there is, however, mistrust among the banks themselves.

Bankers’ belief that deposit growth rate will remain constant has led to today’s tight

liquidity situation. “They lent aggressively believing that the deposit growth rate would remain constant, which was wrong” he added.

According to central bank data, commercial banks had Rs 647 billion worth deposit by May end. By the end of last fiscal year, they had Rs 617 billion worth deposit. “The deposit growth rate has slowed down,” the governor said.
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