UNCAACCEPTABLE

SCRAPPING 11 AND 25 POINTS UNACCEPTABLE AMENDMENTS ACCEPTABLE SAYS MAOIST CHIEF
Kathmandu, 8 Aug.: Chairman of the UCPN (Maoist), Pushpa Kamal Dahal, has expressed the belief that the election to the second Constituent Assembly (CA) would be held on the stipulated date at any cost even if the CPN-Maoist does not
participate in time. RSS reports from Pokhara..
At an interaction with leaders of civil society and intellectuals here today, Dahal clarified that the date of the CA election could not be extended and urged all not to doubt that the election would not be held.
He said the 11-point and 25-point agreements could not be scrapped and the incumbent government could not be changed, but expressed the view that amendment could be made if there were some points of disagreement in them.
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RED PANDA STUDY BEGINS
Kathmandu,  8 Aug. : A study has begun on the red panda which is included in the list of endangered wild animals in four Village Development Committees (VDCs) in the northern belt of Ilam district, RSS reports from Ilam..
The study is being undertaken with the objective of developing the four VDCs into a protected cluster area and habitat for the red panda.
The four VDCs selected for that purpose are the Jogmai, Jamuna, Mabu and Maimajhuwa. The different community and national forests in these VDCs would be turned into special red panda conservation areas, said Phinju Sherpa, the Coordinator of the High Hills Herbs Conservation Organization. The organization is also involved in this project.
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POWER SUMMIT IN CAPITAL FROM 25 AUG.
Kathmandu, 8 Aug.: The Independent Power Producers’ Association, Nepal (IPPAN) is going to host Power Summit 2013 in Kathmandu from August 26-27, The Rising Nepal reports..
 The two-day Summit organized with a theme of ‘Hastening Pace of Hydropower Development’ aims at catalyzing the power development sector, which is said to have dissipated over the past couple of years.

“The Summit will be geared to conduct critical review of where we have reached since 2006, what we lack and what needs to be in the place to hasten the pace of development of the hydropower sector in Nepal,” Dr. Subarna Das Shrestha, President of IPPAN, told the media.

In the past seven years, only 180MW power has been added to the national grid. Out of that, 110MW was generated by the private sector while 70MW by the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA), he said.

At present a total of 337 projects are surveyed with an estimated capacity of 9021MW, 74 have applied for generation license to generation 3908mW, 11 have signed a power purchase agreement with the generation capacity of 1598MW, as well as 70 projects are in different stages of construction with a capacity of 1978MW, he added.

Stating that the Power Summit was dedicated to creating an enabling environment for the successful completion of these projects, he said that the Summit also aimed at increasing the per capita energy consumption to 500KWh from the existing mere 85KWh.

The Summit will dwell into issues such as political commitment, legal and regulatory framework, realistic electricity demand forecast, electricity pricing, project financing infrastructure, construction of transmission lines and managing local expectations among others.

Similarly, the Summit will have separate issues such as projects with local investments and for domestic consumption, projects for domestic market with FDI components, exports oriented projects with FDI and power market mechanism.

The outcome of the Summit is expected to help build a status report, a clear picture of the state of affairs and establish a plan of action with designated roles and responsibilities.

Dignitaries from government of Nepal, India, china, Norway and international agencies will be attending the event participated by relevant stakeholders from Brazil, China, Czech Republic, France, India, Korea, Norway, USA among other countries.

The Summit will be organized jointly by the IPPAN, PTC India Ltd. and Non Resident Nepali Association (NRNA) while it is supported by the Government of Nepal, Ministry of Energy and the Board of Investment.

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PREPARATIONS START FOR BUDGET IMPLEMENTATION

Kathmandu, 8 Aug,: Ministry of Finance has started internal preparation for the effective implementation of budget, The Rosing Nepal reports..
At a time of the discussion on financial discipline has been emerging, the ministry has started works to make internal financial management sound and
A meeting of monitoring directorate under the Finance Minister Shankar Prasad Koirala held at the ministry on Wednesday decided to make the monitoring directorate stronger.
The meeting also stressed the need of making monitoring, evaluation and facilitating role of the ministry in various development projects under the different ministries more effective.
Speaking at the occasion, Minister Koirala said that the effective monitoring would make the implementation of the budget more effective, decipilined and transparent.
Finance secretary Shanta Raj Subedi said that coordination among the various directorates was needed for effective management elimination of contradictory in implementation.
Ramsaran Pudasaini, chief at the Monitoring directorate had submitted the proposal that the directorate could play role in financial management.
Chief advisor at the Mof, Dr. Chiranjibi Nepal, joint-secretaries, Rajan Khanal, Baikhuntha Aryal, Shishir Dhungana, Krishna Prasad Devekota, Janmajaya regmi, Madhu Marasaini and Tankamani sharma also gave their suggestion for the effective role of the monitoring directorate.

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