PM CALLS FOR FINANCIAL CONTRIBUTION Kathmandu, 28 Feb.: Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai has urged all to contribute one day´s earning to the New Nepal Building Fund for running social upliftment, economic progress and awareness-oriented programmes in the Country, RSS reports.. Prime Minister Bhattarai made this call in connection with the implementation of the Immediate Action Plan of Administrative and Financial Reforms-2069 issued by the government five months ago. On the occasion, the prime minister issued directives to bring a special action plan for the involvement of one million volunteers in the development works of the country and for mobilizing them. Acting Secretary at the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers, Indra Prasad Upadhyay, said that the Prime Minister urged people and non-resident Nepalis to contribute at least one day´s earning to the Fund. The Prime Minister instructed the bodies concerned to have the private hospitals also to issue the ´patient charter´, curb the unhealthy advertisements in the health sector and put the ´for free´ label on medicines that are distributed free of cost and to keep the human resources at stand-by position so that medical teams with medicines could be dispatched immediately in places where epidemic has spread and to ensure doctors´ service in all the remotre places. Similarly, Prime Minister Bhattarai directed the people who have received the Bachelor and Masters degrees in specific subjects to work as volunteers for at least three months, pointing out that the public corporations should be rendered people-oriented and the work of increasing the government liabilities in unrestrained manner be curbed. He also directed the bodies concerned to make arrangements for providing capital subsidies on equipments used for processing meat, tea, cardamom, ginger, coffee, milk and citrus fruits, Upadhyaya said. He stated that the prime minister has issued special directives to the Ministry of Finance to formulate an action plan to bring into the tax net lavish feasts organized in functions like the sacred thread ceremony, the rice feeding ceremony, weddings etc. which are not taxable and to initiate immediate efforts to that end. According to the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers, a herbs collection and trading centre would be established in Surkhet within the current fiscal year, only nine per cent interest would be imposed on business loans to agriculture, dairy, fishery and poultry related entrepreneurs. The government would provide subsidy on the additional interest. Similarly, the age limit at which a citizen gets the social security allowance has been reduced to 65 years from 70 years and 50 per cent extra amount has been added to the allowance. The Prime Minister has once again issued directives so that the projects of national prestige do not face any kind of shortage of resources and that the load shedding does not cross more than 12 hours. Nnnn