PROLONGED SHUTDOWN HITS LIFE Kathmandu, 13 May: The Far Western region saw no respite from banda on Saturday as well. As the indefinite strike entered its 16th consecutive day on Saturday, normal life was thrown out of gear in the nine districts of the region, Chitramga Thapa, Mohan Budhair and Ganesh Chaudhary report in The Kathmandu Post from Mahendramagar and Dhangadhi. Apparently, to show their strength to the rival group, banda organisers staged a huge demonstration at Mahendranagar in Kanchanpur, demanding an undivided Far West. Thousands of protesters took out a rally that later converged into a corner meeting. The protesters chanted slogans warning the talk team, which reached the Capital for negotiation with the government, against compromising on their undivided Far West demand. Similarly, banda crippled life in Dhangadhi, Kailali, as well. Transportation was disrupted while marketplaces remained closed in the area. There was no such tension in Dhangadhi on Saturday as Tharuhat activists did not take to the streets. On Friday, at least 22 people were injured when demonstrations of the supporters of the undivided Far West and a separate Tharuhat state took a nasty turn in Dhangadhi. The supporters of undivided Far West allegedly torched the district office of Backward Society Education in Dhangadhi. However, the coordinator of the Far West Struggle Committee, Gopal Deuba, refuted the allegation. He said some youths tried to vandalise the office but he stopped them. Meanwhile, preparations are being made to take Chairman of Tharuhat Tarai Party Laxman Tharu to the Capital for treatment. He was injured in Friday’s clash. Likewise, six of the injured were taken to Nepalgunj Teaching Hospital in Banke on Saturday, as their treatment was not possible in Bheri Zonal Hospital. Their relatives said that they have been facing hardship in the treatment due to financial problems. Man found murdered Haridutta Bhatta, 45, was found dead in Rajapur area, the border between Kailali and Kanchanpur, on Saturday, in mysterious circumstances. The body has bruises and wounds in several parts. The supporters of the undivided Far West claimed that Bhatta, a resident of Raikawar Bichuwa in Kanchanpur district, was killed while returning home after taking part in the demonstration. “Investigation into the case is under way. His death may not have any link with the movement,” said a police official. The body was taken to Seti Zonal Hospital for postmortem. The victim’s family refused to receive the body and demanded Bhatta be declared a martyr. The talks held on Saturday between the government and the representatives of various organisations agitating in the Far West [in Kathmandu] failed to yield tangible results. As the shutdown called by political parties, student unions and other organisations demanding an “undivided Far West” entered its 16th day, the government negotiators told the talks team that they would put forth the latter’s demands before top leaders of the major parties. nnnn SETI RIVER FLASH FLOOD DEATH TOLL INCREASES TO 31 Kathmandu, 13 May: A preliminary assessment of the recent Seti flash flood indicates that the river started swelling at a very high point, possibly the glaciated area in the headwater of the river, unlike earlier claims, The Kathmandu Post reports. It has been believed so far that the landslide dammed the river which burst out some 25 kilometres away from the Pokhara valley at Machapuchre VDC, causing massive flooding downstream. After observing a video footage taken by Nepal Army during its observation flight on May 5, when the incident occurred, a team of government officials and experts from the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development did not agree that a landslide had caused the disaster. The team on Wednesday travelled to the flood affected area for a preliminary assessment of the source and possible causes. The information shared by ICIMOD on its website on Saturday says the team noted that in contrast to other flash floods in the mountains, this one did not leave heavy deposits of rock debris along its path. Instead, the team found a heavy deposit of fine sediments. Despite these evidences, the actual source and cause of the flood remains unclear. Death toll reaches 31 With two more bodies recovered on Saturday, the death toll triggered by the devastating Seti flash flood in Kaski district has reached 31. According to Police Inspector Rabindra Poudel, six of the bodies are yet to be identified. Forty people are still missing in the flood that swept away riverside settlements on May 5. Nnnn LEADERS DIFFER ON DEFINITION OF MULTI-IDENTITY FEDERATION Kathmandu, 13 May: Despite inching closer to agreement on a model for state restructuring, leaders from the three major political parties could not finalize a deal on Saturday as they differed over the interpretation of a mixed or multi-identity model and also over the matter of delineating various provinces, Tirtha L. Bhusal writes in Republica. According to the party leaders involved in the talks, they are still negotiating over two models-the eight-province model based on mixed or multi-identities and an 11-province model based on common identity—but are likely to finally settle for an 11-province map. Nepali Congress (NC) and the CPN UML have been insisting that while delineating and naming multi-identity provinces, these should include at least the identities of the dominant communities of the province concerned. NC and UML leaders are for delineation of provinces in the fashion of Magarat-Tamuwan-Gandaki for instance, while UCPN (Maoist) leaders are for naming the provinces after one dominant community and including one neutral name, such as in Tamuwan-Gandaki. Leaders at the same time mulling over an 11-province model in which the major basis for naming the provinces will be common identity such as Sagarmatha, Lumbini, Mechi and Koshi. Leaders privy to developments believe that the leaders will finally settle for an 11-province model. “We were very close to reaching a consensus on the 11-province model but differences surfaced when discussion turned to how to delineate the provinces,” said UCPN (Maoist) Vice-chairman Narayankaji Shrestha. According to him, the Maoists also floated the idea of entrusting the task to a commission for federal delineation instead of disputing over minor details of demarcation. He said they discussed various options but could not reach a consensus. “NC leader insisted on eight provinces and UML leaders backed them,” he said. CPN UML leader Madhav Kumar Nepal said discussions are underway over the two models. “The eight-province model can fit in properly with the multi-identity model. But there are differences among us on the interpretation of multi-identity. As far as the 11-province model is concerned, there are some disputes over demarcations and naming of the provinces as well,” said Nepal. He said the leaders are trying to find names that will not be objectionable to anyone. Leaders couldn’t reach agreement although they held several rounds of talk at bilateral as well as trilateral level throughout the day at Singha Durbar. nnnn TOURISTS CANCEL BOOKINGS AMID FEAR Kathmandu, 13 May: With prospect of more strikes and political instability in the run up to the May 28 deadline for the country to promulgate the new constitution, travel industry entrepreneurs says nervous visitors have begun cancelling their bookings and those already here are shortening their trip, Samiksha Koirala writes in Republica. The revelations came after two days of general strike on Thursday and Friday which crippled normal life and forced tourists to remain confined in hotels and other sites. Tourism entrepreneurs said such unpredictable situation rattled the visitors and expressed fears it could spoil their business for the entire season. "Sadly, the strikes and looming instability has already disfigured our projection, pulling it down by 20 percent," said Ashiwini Acharya, senior director sales and marketing of the Everest Hotel. Some of the travel agents like Sita World Travels said they had observed up to 30 percent cancellation in the number of bookings for the period of May to June while others said they were not too optimistic about the prospects. The ratio of cancellation was significantly high on Saturday, said Suraj Lamichhane, deputy general manager at Sita World Travels. He said there was tendency of last moment cancellation and the number of cancellation might cross 40 percent. Tourism entrepreneurs had earlier anounced good business for May to July as they had received sound booking even though those months were regarded as lean season in the past. Despite being a lean seaon, hotels were presently operating with an occupany of 70 percent and were bracing for it to go up in coming days. Bijay Amatya, director of sales and marketing at Yeti Travels said the strike forced tourists to limit their activities, leaving them stranded at different places. “We were unable to send some groups to Pokhara as per the travel itinerary while those who were planning to go by surface had to fly to places like Chitwan and Pokhara with burden of extra cost,” added he. Amatya said if situation like this prolongs there were slim chances for the booking to materialize. “Bandas like these are very discouraging, no matter how much promotional activities we carry out,” he said. “Large segment of tourist come through travel agencies and with the situation like this, such segment will be diverted to other destinations instead of Nepal,” said Acharya, expressing fears that the present negative impression could make it difficult for the industry to recieve encouraging booking for the next few months. Santosh Pokharel adds from Pokhara: Aviation industry also felt the impact of the strike. The cancellation was severe in Pokhara-Jomson sector widely traveled by foreign tourists. Agni Air cancelled the booking of 85 Indian tourists in the sector after they couldn´t come to Pokhara. “The cancellation in Pokhara-Jomsom sector all came in last moment after the strike"” said Prakash Paudel of Satyam Tours and Travels. Agni Air which was operating 14 flights a day in this sector cancelled 8 flights because of the last moment cancellation. nnnn CONTROVERSIAL APPOINTMENT IN PADT Kathmandu, 13 May: The appointment of a board member at the Pashupati Area Development Trust has landed erstwhile Culture Minister Gopal Kirati into controversy with PADT officials saying that the move is against prevailing PADT rules that do not allow the appointment of more than seven board Members, The Himalayan Times reports. Nine days ago, Kirati appointed Punya Prasad Pandey, who was accused of beating Indian priests of the Pashupatinath Temple when he was a board member in 2008, as a PADT board member. Interestingly, Kirati had picked Pandey in the capacity of culture minister in 2008 as well. According to sources, a case was filed against Pandey and other board members Ramesh Dangol and Binod Shahi for the beating. PADT member-secretary Sushil Nahata said the existing rules allow the appointment of seven board members only. “Culture Minister did not inform the PADT before making fresh appointment,” he said. Officials at the Ministry of Federal Affairs, Constituent Assembly, Parliamentary Affairs and Culture said Culture Minister can appoint board members if there are vacancies. They kept mum when asked if there was a vacant position at the PADT. Kirati had courted controversy for sacking Indian priests at the shrine and appointing new ones in 2009. nnnn RISING NPA LOWERS PROFITS Kathmandu, 13 May: The amount of non-performing assets (NPA) with commercial banks has gone up by almost 20 per cent, in the third quarter, pulling down their overall profit, The Himalayan Times reports. The average ratio of NPA to the performing loans to total loans in the third quarter of current fiscal year of the 16 commercial banks has reached 2.21 per cent which was 1.81 per cent in the corresponding quarter of previous fiscal year, according to their unaudited financial figures of the third quarter of current fiscal year. Among the unaudited financial statements released by 16 commercial banks, Nepal Investment Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Everest Bank, Bank of Kathmandu, NCC Bank, NIC Bank, NMB Bank, Citizens Bank International and Sanima Bank saw their bad loans going up this quarter in comparison to that of the corresponding quarter in the previous fiscal year. Likewise, Nabil Bank, Nepal SBI Bank, Grand Bank, Lumbini Bank, Global Bank and Agricultural Development Bank seem to have reduced NPA in review period. The difficulty in recovering loans lent to real estate sector due to the slowdown of the realty sector has weighed in on the debt repayment capacity of the borrowers. NPAs for banks are nothing but loans gone sour that cannot be recovered from customers within the stipulated time. NPA does not yield any income for the banks in the form of principal and interest payments. NPAs eat into the income of the financial institutions as the primary source of income of financial institutions is the interest payments made by the borrowers. Moreover, the banks need to provision certain portion of their profit to balance the NPAs so that higher NPAs translate as lower profit. With the growing bad loans of the bank, loan loss provisioning has also scaled up by almost eight per cent, this quarter. The average loan loss provisioning has reached Rs 3.7 billion which stood at Rs 3.4 billion last quarter. The larger loan loss provisioning for the loans gone bad has eaten up the profit of the banks. The operating profit of the 16 commercial banks has dropped by 18 per cent. The average operating profit stood at Rs 494 billion in the third quarter while in the corresponding period last fiscal year, banks were enjoying more than Rs 606 million as operating profit. The mounting number of bad loans, high cost of fund but lowered interest spread has marred the bank’s income. On the other hand, lack of viable projects to finance has led to banks’ investment and lending remaining limited to low yielding investment. Despite all the problems, Standard Chartered Bank, Nabil Bank and Everest Bank have successfully reaped an operating profit higher than Rs one billion, this quarter. nnnn