NO AGREEMENT BETWEEN UML, MADESH FRONT FOR COMMON CANDIDATE

UPDATE ON DEVELOPMENTS FOR PM
ELECTION
Kathmandu, 27 Aug.: UML and a front of five Madeshbadi
Parties Saturday couldn’t agree on a common candidate for Sunday’s parliamentary election for prime minister.
Maoist second Vice-chairman Dr.Baburam Bhattarai and NC Vice-president Ram Chandra Paudel are the only candidates contesting to succeed Caretaker Prime Minister Jhalanath Khanal.
UML standing committee meeting started later to choose its candidate in the election.
Factions in the party are divided between supporters of Maoists and NC.
Dr. Bhattarai is better poised to win the contest as the largest party.
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GOVT. ASKED TO UNFOLD MYSTERY OPERATOR OF CASINOS
Kathmandu, 27 Aug.: Lawmakers on Friday asked the Tourism Ministry to find out the current operators of four casinos formerly owned by the defunct Nepal Recreation Centre (NRC) amid speculation that its previous owner Rakesh Wadhwa has been running them indirectly through his agents, The Kathmandu Post reports
Lawmakers at a meeting of the parliamentary Finance and Labour Relation Committee pointed out that Wadhwa was still operating the casinos from behind a curtain. Even though the government had scrapped the operating license of NRC for defaulting on royalty payments, it is business as usual at its four casinos—Casino Nepal, Casino Anna, Casino Everest, and Casino Tara.
Among the four, Casino Everest and Casino Tara have cleared their dues and royalty. Two other casinos operated by other groups, Casino Fulbari and Casino Royale, are also running smoothly although they have not paid a penny to the government.
These four casinos together owe the government Rs 326 million in unpaid taxes, with Casino Nepal having outstanding dues of Rs 139 million, Anna Rs 101 million, Royale Rs 23.75 million and Fulbari Rs 61.96 million. “The concerned ministry should identify the real owner of these casinos that have been earning money disregarding their responsibility to clear government dues,” said lawmaker Bishnu Prasad Rimal. According to him, Wadhwa is still operating the casinos through his agents indirectly.
Even Tourism Minister Khadga Bahadur Bishwokarma suspected that Wadhwa was still involved in Nepal’s casinos from behind a curtain. Wadhwa has been on the run since the government initiated action against his company.
Lawmaker Ram Sharan Mahat said that it was seriously wrong that defaulting casinos were still being operated by former NRC officials even though the company has been shut down. Lawmakers Sher Bahadur Kunwar and Shree Ram Dhakal said that the real owner of the casinos should be identified. “It should be investigated who has been operating these casinos in the absence of its owner.”
The Finance Bill 2011-12 has provisioned that casinos should clear their royalty dues within two months of the beginning of the fiscal year. If they fail to do so, they will be charged 15 percent annual fee and an additional 15 percent penalty. If they do not clear their dues even within months after the expiration of the deadline, government agencies can recover the dues from any other assets of the person or the firm concerned and even cancel operating licence.
“As of the present, all the four casinos have not settled their dues and they have been operating as usual,” said Shanta Bahadur Shrestha, director general of the Department of Revenue Investigation (DRI). Amid frequent changes in casino ownership without clearing government dues, the DRI had recently asked the central bank to freeze the bank accounts of Casino Anna run under Annapurna International. “Casino Anna has been barred from transferring its ownership until it clears its government dues,” Shrestha said.
Following this move, Shrestha said that the new management had paid Rs 17 million and had promised to pay the rest in instalments. After the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee tightening the screw on casinos, the government has so far collected Rs 197 million in unpaid dues.
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PADDY FIELD ACREAGE SHRINKS
Kathmandu, 27 Aug.: The country’s land under paddy cultivation has shrunk to 1.49 million hectares from 1.55 million hectares within two years, thanks to increasing urbanization and crop diversification, Sangam Parsain writes in The Kathmandu Post reports..
According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (MoAC), Nepal has lost 59,464 hectares of paddy fields since 2008-09.
Agro experts said that the rapid decline in arable land in the country’s food basket, the Eastern and Central Tarai, was particularly alarming. The Eastern Tarai, the country’s major paddy producing region, lost 77,556 hectares of paddy fields within two years.
Saptari and Siraha lost the most among the five districts in the Eastern Tarai. These five districts contained 375,208 hectares of paddy fields in 2008-09 which have now diminished to 297,652 hectares.
Agro experts have attributed the drop in arable land to rapid urbanization, crop diversification and shortage of farm labour. “One of the reasons behind this is that rapid urbanisation is taking place in these districts,” said Hari Krishna Upadhyay, executive chairman of the Centre for Environment and Agricultural Policy Research, Extension and Development (CEAPRED).
Moreover, paddy land has remained uncultivated because of lack of irrigation, low yield and shortage of labour to farm the land. Senior agro-economist at the MoAC Krishna Prasad Pant said that a manpower shortage in the Tarai could be another major reason why paddy farming is being abandoned. “There is a rising trend of using arable land to grow other crops which yield higher returns in a short time compared to paddy.”
According to the MoAC’s statistics, the Central Tarai has emerged as the largest paddy producer in the country, even though the land under paddy cultivation has declined in 2011. The Central Tarai, that includes Dhanusha, Mahottari, Sarlahi, Rautahat, Bara, Parsa and Chitwan districts, has 310,679 hectares of land under paddy plantation.
Paddy fields in the Western Tarai districts—Nawalparasi, Rupendehi, and Kapilvastu—expanded to 190,190 hectares from 188,950 hectares in 2008-09. Likewise, in the Mid-Western Tarai districts of Dang, Banke and Bardia, the area under paddy cultivation rose to 117,550 hectares in 2011 from 112,458 hectares in 2008-09.
The Far Western Tarai districts of Kailali and Kanchanpur together have 106,655 hectares under paddy cultivation.
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