RICE AND OTHER ESSENTIALS BEING SOLD THROUGH FAIR PRICE SHOPS FROM FRIDAY

FAIR PRICE SHOPS OPENED FROM FRIDAY

Kathmandu, 23 Sept.: Nepal Food Corporation (NFC) began selling subsidized rice and other essential goods in and outside from Friday.
Five fair shops have been opened in the capital; mobile teams are also marketing produce during the festive season.
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SOCIAL SECURITY ALLOWANCE THROUGH CARDS, FINGERPRINTS

Kathmandu, 23 Sept.: Amid complaints about the misuse of the social security allowance meant for the elderly, single women and marginalised groups, the government is preparing to distribute the allowance on the basis of fingerprints and special identity cards, Prithvi Man Shrestha writes in The Kathmandu Post.
The Ministry of Local Development (MoLD), in partnership with the World Bank, is preparing to launch a pilot plan to test the modalities from the fiscal year 2012-13.
In the wake of the complaints, the government has already taken an initiative to provide the allowance through the banking channel this year in 58 municipalities and a dozen VDCs and district headquarters from this year.
“The proposed new measures will make the cash transfer transparent and convenient,” said Doug Johnson, consultant at the World Bank involved in designing the new measure. The new modalities were designed under the Social Safety Net Project initiated by the bank.
There are concerns about the misuse of the social security fund as it is as big as Rs 7.5 billion for the current fiscal year.
The project has already prepared the terms of reference for both biometric (fingerprint-based) payment service providers (banks) and two factor (special cards-based) payment service providers. “As irrelevant persons cannot match fingerprints, chances of misuse through the biometric system are minimal,” said MoLD Spokesperson Dinesh Thapaliya. “However, the card-based system is also reliable.”
The process of distributing social security allowance through the two new methods will formally begin after the ministry endorses the terms of reference. “The ministry is likely to endorse the terms of reference within a few days,” said Thapaliya.
The project aims to start distributing the allowance through these two means in six districts and prepare a database of beneficiaries and management information system (MIS) in an additional six districts. Although the pilot plan is just for a year, banks involved have to pledge to continue the service for two additional years (three years in total) for the fee agreed initially, if the ministry requests so.
According to the terms of reference, only commercial banks are allowed to transfer the social security allowance and they have to sign a contract with the ministry after winning a bid through open competition. According to the terms, the approximate date of signing the contract is April 1, 2012 and the first payment will be made on September 30, 2012. Bankers also see a good business opportunity in the new system. “We welcome any financial transaction that take place through the banking system,” said Rajan Singh Bhandari, vice-president of Nepal Bankers’ Association. “On top of that, banks are well equipped with all required technologies for fund transfer.”
As per the terms of reference, the chosen banks are required to collect details of beneficiaries including photo, all 10 fingerprints and other data required to meet the ‘know your customer’ requirements and should ensure that there has not been any duplication. They can charge fees such as project management fee which is paid once for the entire project, fee for each person enrolled as beneficiary, fund transfer fee and fee for additional government benefits.
Besides, the banks also have an extra benefit. Johnson said they could offer different deposit products to beneficiaries as well.
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AIDS CENTER LIKELY TO RUN OUT OF LIFE-SAVING DRUGS

Kathmandu, 23 Sept.: The National Centre for AIDS & STD Control (NCASC) is likely to run out of the pediatric Anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs next month. This will affect over 300 HIV-infected children across the country who depend on the life saving drug, Manish Gautam writes in The Kathmandu Post..
The looming shortage, which is likely to last for the next four-six months, will affect the children’s medication against the deadly disease.
Dr Ramesh Kharel, the NCASC director, admitted to the imminent drug crisis and said the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which supplies the drugs, has stopped the supply now. “We have been notifying the UNDP about the ARV for the past 10 months. The NCASC’s role is only to distribute the drugs,” Kharel said. UN officials, however, attribute the delay to the delay in the release of funds by The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM) Round-7 Phase 2.
“We signed the grant last week and expect to receive new GFATM funds by mid-October,” George Ionita, the project manager of GFATM and the DFID HIV/AIDS Programme Management Unit-UNDP Nepal, said.
“From the moment orders are placed with international suppliers, it takes, on an average, between four-six months for goods to arrive in Nepal.”
Ionita also said very few people living with HIV are using the ARV drugs and that the international ARV drug manufacturers do not provide less than 2,500 bottles of the drugs at a time. While the quantity of the drugs the 300 children in Nepal need is far less than the 2,500 bottles, a large chunk of the drugs went to waste in earlier occasions. In Nepal, the UNDP provides the drugs funded by the Global Fund (GF). However, a year ago, the Nepal government had tried to take over the authority of supplying the drugs.
The GF objected to the idea, saying that the Logistics Management Division (LMD) under the Health Ministry will not be able to handle the supply. The plan has been stalled and the UNDP has been given the authority to supply the drugs until July 2012.
Sunil Babu Pant, a Constituent Assembly member and the President of Blue Diamond Society, in an open email sent
to Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai on Thursday, has said that the around 5,100 PLHIV (People Living with HIV)—300 among them children—who are on the ARV drugs, will have to face dire consequences. “There is an acute shortage of ARV drugs in Nepal,” Pant wrote. He urged the PM to take steps to end the plight of the PLHIV.
HIV/AIDS activist Rajeev Kafle said that the ARV drugs for adults, too, will run out in about two months. NCASC officials, however, claim that they have enough stock of the drugs for adults.
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