DEBATE ON FEDERATION CLNCLUDES IN CA THURSDAY

DEBATE ON FEDERATION CONCLUDES IN CA THURSDAY

Kathmandu, 29 March: Debate on two separate suggestions for a federal republic prepared by a state reorganization commission (SRR) will continue for the fourth and last day in the constituent assembly (CA)
Two separate commission reports reflect the deep differences on the issue between parties.
The CA will send it report to a main constitution drafting committee when
the debate concludes.
The work of the Nilanbar Acharya committee has to prepare a draft of a
constitution based on the CA report.
The task will be Herculean.
Nnnn

GOVT. PREPARES DUAL PRICING FOR LPG
Kathmandu, 29 March : The government is preparing to introduce dual pricing on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) in a bid to check loss on cooking gas.

However, the arrangement that it is planning to put in place for the distribution of subsidized supply lack a clear mechanism to control possible leakages, which could prevent it from realizing the desired result.

Under the new arrangement that a top Ministry of Commerce and Supplies (MoCS) official said will be enforced soon, the government will supply only eight cylinders (14.2 kg) of gas at a subsidized rate to a family in a year. Students living away from the family will get four cylinders at subsidized rate every year.

“Prices for rest of the consumption will be opened, meaning it will be set at par with the import rates,” said the source. Given that NOC is presently incurring a loss of Rs 563 per cylinder, officials said the open market rates of gas could stand somewhere around Rs 2,050.

This means families consuming more than eight cylinders of gas and students consuming more than four cylinders in a year will need to pay more for the fuel.
For subsidized supply, the Ministry has even instructed the Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) to issue consumer cards to general consumers. Only the customers holding the card will enjoy the subsidized supply and others will need to pay higher rates.

“Commercial consumers, including hotels, restaurants, factories and automobiles will not get the cards, as they will need to pay higher prices for the fuel,” said the source.

Interestingly, however, the MoCS and NOC have asked LPG bottling companies to identify and list out their consumers. They are planning to entrust the responsibility of distributing consumer cards to bottling companies.

“We do not want to complicate the process. So, we have decided to leave it to the industries to supply the subsidized fuel,” said the source.

With such a mechanism, concerned officials are hopeful they will be able to check the loss on LPG business. However, experts and sources at the NOC said the modus operandi adopted by the government was faulty and leaves scope for manipulations wide open for the companies.

As the government has not put in place a cross-checking mechanism, companies can easily create fake household consumers and supply their subsidized quota to industries at higher rates, said an NOC official. If that happened, the additional money paid by the industries will go into the pocket of the bottling companies instead of NOC.

“What if the companies over-issued the consumer cards? That will start trading of cards itself, creating black-marketing and making life difficult for both the government and NOC,” said Amrit Nakarmi, energy expert, who is also the former general manager of NOC.

Recalling the past experience when the government introduced dual pricing on kerosene, he said the haphazard distribution of consumer cards by ward offices then had suddenly sparked trading of cards, inflicting more than regular volume of loss to NOC. Failing to contain the situation, the government had withdrawn the dual pricing itself.

“If the government did not seriously devise ways to plug the leakages, we will witness mere recurrence of similar situation,” he told Republica.

Given the situation, experts said introduction of separate cylinders for household and commercial consumers is the most workable mechanism if the government wants to control loss through dual
pricing.
Nnnn



________________________________________

CRITICAL DEBATE ON FEDERATION CONINUES IN CA
Kathmandu, 29 March:: Constituent Assembly members of different political parties today pWednesday] suggested for ensuring maximum rights to the local bodies and convenience to the people while carving out the federal units, The Himalayan Times reports.

Taking part in the third-day discussion on the State Restructuring Commission’s reports, the CA members reiterated that the commission had carved out the federal units haphazardly without considering the geographical and administrative convenience of the people.

The SRC reports will be forwarded to the CA’s Constitutional Committee with suggestions raised during the deliberations after the scheduled discussions at the CA full house is over tomorrow. The CC is responsible to prepare first draft of the new statute.

Unified CPN-Maoist CA member Agni Sapkota said the report of CA’s Committee on State Restructuring and Sharing of State Powers was better although the SRC report is not so disappointing. “Giving maximum power to the lower units of the government never divides the country, so no one should protest against making the lower units powerful,” said Sapkota.

As the SRC report carved out the federal units randomly without caring geographical and administrative continence of the people, it should be corrected, Sapkota said. The federalism should also ensure people’s right to self-determination, he added.

Nepali Congress CA member Pradip Giri said that the residual power should be vested in lower units of the government. “Sustainable peace could be achieved only if maximum powers were provided to the people in local level, but the federal units should not be carved out on the basis of caste, which pushes the country towards conflict,” he said.

Giri said that the SRC prepared the report as per the partisan interest without caring the Nepal’s ground reality. “Rights related to foreign affairs, finance and national security should be given to the prime minister or the chief executive, and other rights can be given to the lower units of the government,” he said.

CPN-UML member Raghubir Mahaseth suggested that the demand of “one Madhes single province” cannot solve Madheshis’ problems. He supported the proposed two provinces in Tarai Madhes region.

Madhesi Janadhikar Forum (Republican)’s Atmaram Prasad Sah said that culture, ethnicity, language and geographic reality should be the made main basis of federalism.

During the three days’ discussions, 86 Constituent Assembly members expressed their views on the SRC reports.
nnnn