NDAC’s 50th meeting: Clear arrears promptly

The national development action committee (NDAC) has directed the arrears clearance committee to clear arrears of the time before enforcement of federalism within a year.

The 50th meeting of the NDAC held at Prime Minister’s office on Thursday directed the committee to clear the arrears of district development committees and education offices- the bodies existing before federalism in place. Similarly, the arrears at province and local levels have to be cleared on time, the meeting stressed.

In the meeting, Vice-Chairman of the National Planning Commission, Dr Min Bahadur Shrestha, presented a 17-point proposal on resolving the problems facing national development. Questions were raised on existing Public Procurement Regulation, 2064 which was discouraging small construction entrepreneurs from participating in bidding process. Whether the regulation could be amended was also dwelt on in the meeting.

Similarly, the public procurement monitoring office has been asked to submit a report on contract ceiling, tender cost, and bidding duration.

The Ministry of Land Management, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation has been directed to coordinate with Finance Ministry and Nepal Rastra Bank to regulate well the cooperatives for solving the problems surfaced lately in this sector.

Moreover, the Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration has been directed to ensure adequate human resources at province and local levels so that service delivery and development works would not be hampered.

Various other issues as revenue sharing between province and local levels on natural resources, need of formulating laws on it, arrangement of G2G scheme to purchase chemical fertilizer, address to the problems of technical institutes and trainers, handover of technical institutes under CTEVT to province governments, amendment of law on permission needed from Division Forest Office to cut trees on construction works.

Moreover, unplanned settlements, acquisition of land for construction works, and industrial estate were raised as pressing issue in the meeting.