STATE RESTRUCTURING COMMISSION MEETS FOR FIRST TIME SUNDAY

COLDEST WINTER OF THE SEASON RECORDED IN CAPITAL SUNDAY

Kathmandu, 27 Nov.: The coldest winter of the season was recorded Sunday morning capital when the mercury dipped to 4 degrees Celsius.
Daytime temperature is expected to rise to 22/24 degrees
Winter set-in early this year in Kartik when three days of rain was recoded in the capital.
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STATE RESTRUCTURING COMMISSION TO MEET FOR FIRST TIME

Kathmandu, 27 Nov. The first meeting of a state restructuring commission without a chairman meets for the first tome Sunday to recommend suggestions for a new federal structure launched
ruling and opposition parties.
A Dalit member is yet to be appointed to the eight-member commission; the Big Three have to nominate him.
UCPN (Maoist) and opposition parties hold a summit later Sunday.
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PARLIAMENT MEETS SUNDAY TO CONSIDER AN AMENDMENT BILL TO INTERIM CONSTITUTION
Kathmandu, 27 Nov. Parliament meets Sunday to discuss and approve a government bill to amend an interim constitution for the 11th time.
The 11th amendment proposes to extend the constituent assembly (CA)/ parliament for six months after 30 November.
Main parties outside government haven’t officially agreed on the duration of the extension as government has sought a six-month extension.
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PARTIES DIVIDED ON ISSUE OF FEDERALISM WITH ETHNIC AUTONMY ADMITS MAOIST LEADER DEV GURUNG
Kathmandu, 27 Nov.: Leader of the Unified CPN-Maoist Dev Gurung said the task of constitution writing could not be accomplished so far as the federalism along with ethnic autonomy has yet to be guaranteed, RSS reports from Lalitpur..



Speaking in an interaction entitled ‘Constituent Assembly and the Guarantee of a Newa Autonomous State with Eight to Self-determination’ organised by the Unified Newa: National Liberation Front here on Saturday, he said the parties are deeply divided on the issue of federalism with ethnic autonomy.



Leader Gurung said equality in society could be established only by providing special privileges along with self-determination rights to the indigenous nationalities, the Dalits and women.



At the programme, central emmber of the Front, Dil Bahadur Shrestha, president of the Newa: Loktantrik Khala, Krishna Bahadur Dhwaju, among others demanded that the Newa Autonomous State should be ensured by the constitution itsel
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POLICE SEEK ACCESS TO CALL RECORDS OF CRIME SUSPECTS
Kathmandu, 27 Nov.: Metropolitan Police Crime Division has urged authorities concerned to make it possible for the division to access detailed call records of crime suspects round-the-clock, The Himalayan Times reports.

Police officials rely on such records to investigate crimes such as kidnapping, murder and extortion.

DSP Somendra Singh Rathor, who has looked into more than 50 cases of abduction in the last three years, said call records played an important role in investigating abduction and murder cases.

“Culprits mostly use mobile phones to perpetrate the crimes.

Moreover, close acquaintances of the victim are mostly connected with the crime,” he said.

“Telecom operators need to make their logs available to us as and when needed,” a senior police official said.

“It is unfortunate that police have no access to telecom records during the public holidays and after 3 pm on Friday,” he added.

Valley police believe, referring to abduction and murder of Rosy Maharjan and Shubham Sah, that the cases got more complicated following the telecom operators’ ‘failure as well as reluctance’ to provide the call details when the department needed. Police say both were kidnapped on a Friday.

While Rosy, was abducted and murdered on August 5, Shubham was kidnapped on November 18 and killed two days later.

Surendra Bahadur Thike, Spokesperson for Nepal Telecom, said they were discussing ways to provide call records to crime investigators round-the-clock.
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COMMERCIAL BANK AVERAGE NET SPREAD RATE
DOWN TO 3.2 PERCENT
Kathmandu, 27 Nov.: The commercial bank’s interest spread rate has abated in the recent quarter due to growing deposits and shrinking lending, The Himalaya Times reports.

The commercial bank’s average net interest spread has come down to 3.2 per cent in the first quarter of current fiscal year, according to the recently published unaudited financial reports of the commercial banks. In the previous quarter, that is, fourth quarter of the last fiscal year, the commercial banks’ net interest spread stood at 3.5 per cent on average. Likewise, in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal year the average spread rate enjoyed by the banks stood at 3.4 per cent.

“At present, the banks have excess liquidity that means the total interest amount to be paid is growing in comparison to the total interest amount they are getting paid leading to contraction of spread rate,” pointed out Bhaskar Mani Gyanwali, spokesperson for the central bank.

The net interest spread is a profit margin for the banks. The difference between the income received from its lending activities and expenses made to pay for borrowing is the spread for the banks. Basically, higher the spread higher is the profit for the banks as the net interest is the determining factor for the financial institutions’ income.

Since the beginning of the current fiscal year, deposits with the commercial banks have started to grow more than the amount of lending made by banks leading to comfortable liquidity situation among the financial institutions. Despite sufficient deposits banks are apprehensive to lend aggressively. The banks cite the absence of viable projects as the reason behind the down turn of lending. Likewise, the major borrower from financial institutions –realty sector has also cooled down leading to contraction in interest income of the banks. Among the 27 of the 31 commercial banks that have published net spread rate on their financial reports, Nepal Bangladesh Bank has the lowest spread of 1.79 per cent while Sunrise Bank has highest spread of 4.44 per cent. The banks have been paying higher interest for deposits in order to attract more deposits during the liquidity crunch period leading to further rise in the lending rate. “Though the banks have started to lower their lending rate lowering of deposit rate is yet to be started,” pointed out Gyanwali. Everest Bank and Citizens Bank International have already lowered the lending rate by 0.25 percentage in all the loan accounts. Others banks are also expected to lowers their rates soon.

NRB absorbs Rs 5.44bn

In order to absorb the excess liquidity in the financial system, Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) has auctioned the government securities worth Rs 5.44 billion to the financial institutions. “The government securities were auctioned off at weighted average interest rate of 3.58 per cent to commercial banks and development banks,” informed spokesperson for NRB Bhaskar Mani Gyanwali.
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