MPEF-R CENTRALCOMMITTEE MEET BEGINS

MPEF-R CENTRAL COMMITTEE MEET BEGINS
Kathmandu, 23 Feb.: A meeting of the central committee of MPRF-R began discussions Thursday evening on the party’s future after its chairman and Communication Minster JayaprakashPrasad Gupta was convicted of corruption by the supreme court and jaild this week.
An emergency meeting of meeting of party office bearers Wednesday suspended fromhis party duties.
The central committee is discussing the party move and its involvement in a front wth Madeshbadi parties in the government of Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai.
RSS ADDS: Speaker Subas Nembang informed the meeting of the Business Advisory Committee of the Constituent Assembly (CA) /Legislature-Parliament on Thursday that Minister for Information and Communications, Jaya Prakash Prasad Gupta is no more a member of the CA and the Legislature-Parliament.

The Speaker declared that Gupta's post has fallen vacant in accordance with Article 67 of the Interim Constitution of Nepal, 2007 and Rule 134 of the CA Regulations as he has been implicated in a corruption case by the Supreme Court, according to spokesman at the Parliament Secretariat, Mukunda Prasad Paudel.

Gupta was elected the Constituent Assembly member from Saptari district constituency-3 in the general election.

The meeting has also extended the term of the Dispute Resolution Committee constituted to seek solution to the disputed issues of constitution writing by ten days for the second time.

Before this, the committee had fixed the term of the Dispute Resolution Committee until February 22.


LEGAL ACTION ORDERED AGAINST HIMAL GAS
Kathmandu, 23 Feb.: Gaurishankar Gas Industry, the producer of Himal Gas, will face government action for its involvement in black-marketing of liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG).
Minister for Commerce and Supplies Lekh Raj Bhatta on Wednesday directed the
authorities concerned to take ‘immediate legal action’ against the gas plant based in Sanga, Kavre, which was found involved in black-marketing of LP gas in a raid carried out under the leadership of the minister.
An inspection team led by Bhatta and represented by officials from Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC), and the Department of Commerce inspected three gas bottling plants—Gaurishankar, Sagar and Surya gas—on Wednesday.
Bhatta also directed authorities concerned to seal Gaurishankar’s office for 15 days and probe the company. “We have obtained enough proof of the company’s involvement in black-marketing. It will be penalised as per the Black Marketing Act,” Bhatta said after the inspection.

The team, also involving Journalists, headed to Gaurishankar’s office at Sanga after complaints that Himal Gas cylinders were not present in the market for sale for the last 15 days despite adequate purchase delivery orders issued by the NOC for the company.
Under the minister’s directive, over 300 LPG cylinders were distributed to Sanga locals.
As per the company’s sales records, it has been supplying around 1,500 LPG cylinders to its dealers every day since last 15 days. But it was found that those who received gas from the industry were fake clients. The company has 200,000 LPG cylinders.
“It has also been found that the company was selling 50 percent of its gas by charging higher price,” said Lal Mani Joshi, secretary at the Ministry of Commerce and Supplies (MoCS), a member of the inspection team.
As per the plant’s sales data, it sells 200-300 cylinders per day to locals (as per the DAO directive) and remaining to dealers. But it failed to show which dealers received the gas. “The factory was found supplying LPG to fake dealers,” said Joshi. The factory cannot supply gas to others except dealers. “Based on the calculation, the company was making profits of over Rs 42,000 per day through black-marketing,’ said Joshi.
NOC’s acting managing director Suresh Agrawal said the corporation had been issuing adequate purchase delivery orders to the company, but the required amount of LPG cylinders had not been sold in the market. In the last five days, the company has been issued purchase delivery orders for over 87 tonnes of LPG.
Gaurishankar Manager Dek Raj Bhattarai, however, said his company was not involved in black-marketing. “We have 125 dealers and are supplying LPG to all of them,” he said.
Interestingly, when Bhattarai was defending his company, a car (30 CD 4) belonging to the Korean Embassy carrying over 20 empty LPG cylinders entered into Himal Gas premises.
Prem Tiwari, driver of the vehicle, said the embassy arranges LPG cylinders for its every staff member and he was sent there to get gas. A gas plant cannot supply gas to others except dealers.
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• VALLEY STILL BIGGEST MARKET FOR FINANCIAL
• INSTITUTIONS
Kathmandu, 23 Feb.: The proliferation of banks and financial institutions (BFIs) may have done wonders to expanding Nepali people’s access to formal banking channels, but Kathmandu Valley is still the largest market for BFIs when it comes to deposits and lending, Bibek Subedi writes in The Kathmandu Post.
According to The Economic Survey, there was one bank branch for every 23,800 people in 2010-11 compared to one for every 29,300 people in 2009-10, thanks to BFIs’ aggressive expansion drive. But the valley accounts for a majority of financial activities of banks, according to a recent study of Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB). The study shows that about 70 percent of total bank deposits is collected from the three valley districts—Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Lalitpur—and around 65 percent of the total lending in done within the valley.
According to the central bank’s ‘Economic Activities Study Report’, of the total bank deposits of Rs 725.90 billion at the end of fiscal year 2010-11, Rs 493.01 billion (67.91 percent) was collected from the three valley districts. Similarly, of the total lending of Rs 586.50 over the period, Rs 375.72 billion (64.64 percent) is lent within the valley.
Bankers did not find the statistics surprising. They say the figures reflect the state of country’s economy—economic activities concentrated in the valley. “The bank branch expansion has definitely made people’s access to formal financial system easier, but economic activities did not expand simultaneously,” said NIC Bank CEO Sashin Joshi. “A Majority of businesses have their offices in Kathmandu and their activities are concentrated here. Therefore, the credit flow is concentrated here.”
According to regulators, another major reason behind the deposit/lending concentration within the Kathmandu Valley is due to the demographic concentration. “Population in the valley is high,” said Maha Prasad Adhikari, deputy governor at NRB. “Also, the earning and spending capacity of the people living within the valley is higher compared to those living in other parts of the country.”
Due to issues like infrastructural constraints and improper supply chain, economically active people—both business person and employees—live in the valley. This concentration, according to bankers, will take some time to disperse. “Once there is infrastructural development in other part of the country and more employment opportunities are created there, this trend will discontinue,” said Ajay Shrestha, CEO of Bank of Kathmandu. “Also, as it has been only three years since BFIs went for massive expansion drive, it will take some more years for other parts of the country to be the major market for them.”
Apart from the valley, bank deposit/lending concentration is seen in urban cities. According to Joshi, cities like Pokhara, Butwal, Biratnagar, Birgunj and Nepalgunj are major contributors to his bank’s deposit portfolio and a majority of lending done in cities like Birgunj, Biratnagar and Pokhara.
The NRB report shows deposit/lending concentration is declining, but at a ‘very slow’ pace. The valley accounted for 69.90 percent of the total deposits in 2008-09 and 69.12 percent in 2009-10.
In case of lending, 65.58 percent of total credit flow was within the valley in 2008-09, which came down to 64.88 percent in 2009-10.
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OPINION

BIHAR, TO THEE HE NOW SINGS

Kathaamandu, 23 Feb.: For long, the purported travesty of democracy in Bihar proved potent for Dr. Baburam Bhattarai, as he denigrated Nepal’s parliamentary system and described the Maoists’ vision for a new Nepal, Maila Baje writes is Nepali
Netbook.
So it was hard to miss the irony behind Prime Minister Bhattarai’s one-day visit to Patna to inaugurate the Global Bihar Summit, where he praised the progress the bordering Indian state has recently attained as well as the man who turned things around.
Maila Baje doesn’t want to deny Dr. Bhattarai his inherent right to tailor his outlook and opinions to the ground realities of the day. Thus when our prime minister hailed Bihar’s Chief Minister Nitish Kumar as a visionary leader, it is likely that Dr. Bhattarai himself was awed by the transformative leadership that can emerge with little forewarning.
Until not too long ago, after all, Nitish Kumar was considered part of the cabal of coalition-driven chaos that lay before India’s central politics amid a crumbling Congress party. Retreating from the boisterous climes of New Delhi, Nitish Kumar settled in Patna.
Now, bolstered by an impressive reelection as the chief minister of a state once lamented within the Indian union as its most lawless, Nitish Kumar is on his way towards the league of N. Chandrababu Naidu and other people of action unconstrained by life at the provincial level.
In an effusive overture, Nitish Kumar asserted that Nepal could emerge as the richest country in South Asia. While suggesting the development of more hydroelectric power plants, Nitish also sought water management in a way that could lead to better irrigation in the fertile lands in Bihar and Nepal.
The water issue is critical to Bihar, where more than two-thirds of its farmland is vulnerable to floods from rivers originating in Nepal. Several villages were wiped out during the 2008 floods, some of which are still believed to be buried under layers of sand. And who knows what sorrows seasons in the future might reap.
By harnessing Nepali rivers, Bihar could expect to rid itself of perennial devastation, while hoping to solve the power problem as the state continues to grow. Water is already a sensitive subject in Nepal and is likely to become more so when individual Indian states start handling the matter.
Nitish Kumar seems to be doing his best to woo all sections of Nepali political opinion. He recently welcomed the Nepali Congress’ Pradip Giri, winning quite a few minds in a party where skepticism of India has grown in direction proportion to the period of its exclusion from power. The acquittal by a Patna court of 11 Nepali Maoist leaders, too, is seen as having come after much lobbying by the chief minister.
Praising Dr. Bhattarai’s inaugural remarks at the end of the two-day event, Nitish Kumar described the summit as having added a new chapter in India-Nepal ties. How Dr. Bhattarai will fit this camaraderie into his wider criticism of the open Nepal-India border as the cause of Nepal’s economic impoverishment will be interesting to watch – both for style and content.
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NEPAL AND INDIA ROT AT TOP

Kathmandu, 23 Feb.: Corruption is a coin that is in circulation since more than 60 years in Nepal. Actually, we do not need the unsolicited assistance of an organization like Transparency International to point out how corrupt we are, Trikal Vastavik writes in People’s Review.
Nepalis are well aware of the problem that has been ballooning all along. The last six years have been particularly worse because of the “fusion” in the working relationship between the Maoists and the Nepali Congress-CPN (UML) nexus.
Charges of corruption were leveled against all governments since the Mohan Shumsher-B.P. Koirala cabinet in 1951. During the near 30 years of panchayat, panchas themselves and members of banned parties accused the rulers of pocketing money meant for the people. Some of the charges were true, some were exaggerations. Ministers tried to protect smugglers and goons who served them loyally, organized rallies for them and campaigned for their elections.
With the change in the political system in 1990 after multiparty system of government was restored, hopes were that things would improve dramatically. The next 15 years saw more corruption than during the entire period of the discredited panchayat regime.
Worse, politicization of various sectors grew and government decisions were made in accordance with party allegiance. Political leaders amassed wealth that put to shame what the panchas during the partyless decades had made. Members of parliament switched sides in keeping with the money changing hands under the counter.
Fifteen years later, during which the Maoists launched their “People’s War” claiming the lives of 16,000 Nepalis, drastic changes were promised, especially in the wake of abrupt declaration of Nepal as a secular republic.
The changes have no doubt been literally drastic. Nepalis today are in the midst of chaos, impunity and bad governance never witnessed in history. Political leaders who wield power and exercise influence have made it big whereas the people they vow to serve are worse off than any time in 60 years.
Corruption is the No.1 problem. Members of parliament have been arrested for misuse of passports, kidnapping and other crimes. In the absence of local governments, Rs.80 billion has been pocketed by the mechanisms monopolized by major political party representatives.
Criminalization of politics is the major challenge for any responsible government. But with major party leaders competing for pulling off the hook their cadres involved in crimes, governance has derailed. Political parties are keen to commute the life sentences of killers who are members of their organizations. According to a senior police official, “We never received such pressure previously to withdraw cases against party workers found on the wrong side of the law.”
As long as political dons are not checked firmly, the prevailing situation will remain. The picture is grim as ever but that is the reality staring at Nepalis even as the international community takes our case casually, if not scornfully.
That is why Nepalis returning home after working as migrant workers in India are subjected to harassment, extortions and thrashings by Indian customs officials and police personnel. The Nepal government has not been able to take up the case promptly.
The media have reported frequently but neither does Nepal government raise the issue with the necessary seriousness nor does the world’s largest democracy care to pull up its officials at the border points. All that Nepali government receives is assurance and no action. At the home secretary-level meeting in New Delhi in January, the issue was raised and the Nepal side consoled itself with the other side’s assurance that the matter would be looked into.
On the other hand, the Indian team raised the issue of counterfeit Indian currency being routed through Nepal. The defensive visiting side told the hosts that everything possible would be done to check such criminal activity. It could not draw the attention of the Indian team to also step vigilance against corrupt Indian officials who are primarily to blame.
Quoting a report compiled by the Financial Intelligence Unit in India, the government-owned Press Trust of India said that there had been a “400 per cent rise in fake currency circulation in India.” The period covered was 2010-2011. Such a jump in the nefarious activity could be checked only when the state is effective in controlling corruption.
Fake currency in India has many routes and one of them seems to be Nepal which itself is facing the problem of fake Nepali currency. Criminals nabbed so far indicate that such currency finds route through India to Nepal.
A series of massive corruption scandals disclosed in the last couple years in India underscores the gravity of the situation. When bureaucrats and other government agencies are corrupt, not only circulation of fake currency but also other serious crimes take place.
Corrupt officials and politicians are believed to have been involved in trillions of rupees from public funds. The 60 billion-rupee scam regarding the 2G project came to light in 2011 is but one of the many instances that have plagued the Indian government.
While such staggering amounts of public money are stolen, Transparency International ranks India better ranking than Nepal. Politics or intimidation? Those who fund the agency should know the correct answer.
Corruption is rampant on both sides of the border. This is dangerous for the neighbors. However, Crimes on the Indian side are larger and graver than on this side. How blind the Indian security can be is indicated by the fact that Nepali Maoists, residing in NOIDA on the outskirts of the Indian capital, for almost nine years, were never seen.
Nepali political party leaders met the Maoists in India several times and yet the Indian security missed them, although Red Corner notices were in circulation. But then, Girija Prasad Koirala and his cohorts termed the Maoists “terrorists” and took great offence when King Gyanendra refused to deploy the military against the “terrorists”.
On the other hand, Koirala and UML leaders exhibited their duplicity by calling the Maoists terrorists and, at the same time, meeting them in Darjeeling, Patna or New Delhi. It is like the Indian government calling the Sri Lankan Tamil rebel leader V. Prabhakaran and his organization as terrorist and yet training them in camps located in southern India. In fact, the Indian government forced an agreement on Colombo to get its “peace-keeping force” invited to northern Lanka to “maintain peace” that eventually arrived long after the foreign troops were made to withdraw.
Let it not be overlooked: Duplicity, marked by corruption, boomerangs on all willing parties, sooner or later.
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