Congress at crucial meet to decide future course

BY A STAFF REPORTER

Kathmandu, Aug. 29: The ruling party’s Central Working Committee met today over a recent understanding between Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala and his peer Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, who on Sunday evening announced the end to the battle primarily over party leadership.

"The details of the agreement reached between Party President Koirala and Bhattarai were put before the CWC," said Nepali Congress Spokesman Narahari Acharya. Acharya said the meeting would continue discussion tomorrow also.

Koirala and Bhattarai, who headed their sides consisting of influential members during a dinner meeting on Sunday, had agreed to reshuffle the CWC and the Cabinet, postpone the party’s general convention until early next year, appoint an Election Commission consisting of five members, two from each side. That Commission will be headed by a neutral Nepali Congress worker, according to the understanding.

Koirala is widely expected to reshuffle the CWC and the Cabinet when he returns from New York early next month. Some however believe he could do that before he departs on September 3 to take part in the Millennium Summit of the United Nations scheduled for 6-8.

The Prime Minister is expecting a name list of Congress lawmakers, whom Bhattarai wants inducted in the CWC and the Cabinet, according to party sources.

That agreement came three weeks after Bhattarai put forth a five point demand, stressing that Koirala, who also is the Party President, retain one of the two posts and appoint Sher Bahadur Deuba as the Acting President. Koirala refused to fulfil that demand saying it was against the party statute.

Koirala also declined to step down as the Prime Minister saying it was unethical to call for his resignation from either of the elected posts. Koirala was elected Parliamentary Party leader against Bhattarai’s political heir Deuba by a majority vote in March this year. Likewise, he had been elected the Party President by a landslide vote four years ago against another Bhattarai loyal Chiranjivi Wagle.

Battle between Deuba-Bhattarai and the Koirala faction came out to the open when the Prime Minister dismissed Water Resource Minister Khum Bahadur Khadka immediately after his return from a weeklong visit to India early this month. Khadka was sacked on charges of orchestrating the Prime Minister’s ouster through a signature campaign pointed towards projecting Koirala in the minority.

Since the two leaders have already reached an agreement the discontent being expressed by some lawmakers is meaningless," Acharya said of the grudges coming from some lawmakers regarding the agreement.

Acharya said during the meeting CWC member Chandra Singh Bhattarai presented a report of the work execution committee on active party membership.

The meeting discussed the report presented by Bhattarai on a point to point basis depending on the nature of the complaints filed.

According to Acharya, around 2,600 party workers have filed complaints relating to the inconsistencies seen in the distribution of active membership of the party.

The number of active members in the party stands at 137 thousand presently.

Acharya said that the agreement between the two senior leaders would come into effect after the CWC meeting concludes.

The CWC will meet again tomorrow at eight in the morning.

‘Work to rehabilitate displaced persons on’

Nepalgunj, Aug. 29 (RSS): Deputy Prime Minister and central member of the Nepali Congress (NC) Ramchandra Paudel has said that HMG has been working vigorously for the rehabilitation of the persons displaced by the terror unleashed by Maoists in the same districts.

Deputy Prime Minister Paudel who reached here in the context of introducing integrated programme in the remote districts affected by Maoists’ terrorism, said, "HMG and the law and order maintaining agency is committed to ensure peace and security in the country. Therefore, it is responsibility of the NC rank and file to unite the people against terrorism by extending cooperation for the development of the villages."

At a programme organised by NC Banke district committee here today, Mr Paudel asserted that it was the main objectives of the NC leaders and activists to work for social development and they should not hesitate to serve the people in the pretext of minor rift within the party.

President of NC district committee Krishna Man Shrestha and others apprised him of the position of the law and order, development works and the party in the district.

Also today, office-bearers of the monitoring committee for the identification of the freed bonded labourers met Deputy Prime Minister Paudel and apprised him of the activities being performed in regard to the freed bonded labourers.

Chairman of Banke district development committee and convenor of the committee Omjung Rana informed the Deputy Prime Minister of the works being carried out by the committee.

Earlier in Lalitpur, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Local Development Paudel left here today for Nepalgunj in connection with his visit to the Maoist affected areas.

Prior to his departure, Mr Paudel told RSS Lalitpur correspondent that he is visiting the districts in the Mid-Western Region, which are quite backward from development point of view and quite sensitive security wise, in connection with the laying necessary groundwork for effective implementation of the first phase integrated development (package) programme by understanding the problem and wishes of the people in those areas.

He expressed the belief that the package programme will be instrumental in doing away with the rampant poverty, illiteracy and backwardness in these areas.

If lack of development, illiteracy and poverty is the reason behind the eruption of violence, the implementation of the package programme will help check the violence; and those involved in violent activities should also cooperate in the implementation of the development programme, Mr Paudel said.

He also said that before deciding to go on a visit to Kalikot, Rolpa, Rukum, Salyan and Jajarkot he had consulted various political parties and local bodies to collect their suggestion.

Too few dentists for too many patients

Kathmandu, Aug 29 (RSS): The People’s Dental College and Teaching Hospital, the first dental hospital in Nepal, caters to nearly 100 patients daily and is also involved in producing dental surgeons.

Although 90 per cent of Nepal’s population of over 20 million suffer from one or the other kind of tooth related problem, there are only 110 registered dentists to cater to the needs of the people.

People’s Dental College and Teaching Hospital, established four years back and formally inaugurated on may 8, 2000 by Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, has been conducting bds classes since November 1999 with an enrolment of 30 students.

The four and half year BDS course offered by the dental college costs Rs. 900,000 excluding room and board. This is three times cheaper than what is available in neighbouring India, hospital sources said.

The college has already invited applications for a second batch of students, classes for whom will start soon after Dashain, said founder principal of the dental college Tirth Ratna Bajracharya. He expects a maximun of 60 students will enroll in the new batch.

The dental college and hospital is planning its own building and hostel complex and will start construction work before Dashain. The Rs.70 million complex will include a well equipped hospital, a college building and boys and girls hostels spread over 10 Ropani of land.

We are committed to community health promotion and to providing dental health to lower class people at cheaper prices, says chief administerator Divya Ram Bhandari. According to him, the hospital has launched free health check up facilities in various parts of the kingdom on a monthly basis.

Last year the dental hospital launched a mobile dental clinic in Nepalgunj in collaboration with the Sushma Koirala Memorial Trust, and this benefited about 500 patients from the remote areas.

The hospital staff includes six foreign doctors and they operate through eight departments. Oral surgery, pedodontics, orthodontics, perodontics and conservative (cavity filling) and endodontics are the major services available.

Says Dr Surendra Man Shrestha, we are going to provide major dental surgery and implantology (the latest technology for implating teeth by the screwing method) in the near future. The college has awarded three partial scholarships for dental surgeons at indian medical institutes.

According to Dr Shrestha, the concept of dentistry has changed. In the past people who visited the dentist usually did so to extract bad teeth. But now they come to protect their teeth. This is because of the growing number of dental people available. Fifty per cent of dental patients now come for teeth filling.

The hospital currently has 26 dental chairs. But within five years, when the college completes its physical infrastructure, it will have 240 chairs, an operation theatre, a post operative ward and an in-patient ward.

Mgmt blamed for RBB plight

BY A STAFF REPORTER

Kathmandu, August 29: Speakers at an interaction programme today said that incompetent management was the main factor leading the state-owned Rastriya Banijya Bank (RBB) to huge losses and called for measures to redress the situation.

Established under full government ownership in 1965, the RBB collected a deposit of 38 billion rupees by mid-April 2000 with 30 billion outstanding loans by mid-July. Seven per cent of the loans are overdue and 36 per cent non-performing.

The result: the Bank claiming the widest network in the country incurred a loss of over one billion rupees during the last fiscal year alone.

A recent study conducted by the KPMG, an international professional advisory firm, identified poor bank governance, political interference, inefficient management and lack of rational banking strategy as the major causes pulling the Bank down.

Weak financial reporting system, weak management information and accounting system, weak human resource management, primitive planning, disrupting union activities, poor quality of loan appraisal and lending practices, unsatisfactory loan recovery performance and over staffing are other ills plaguing the Bank.

"The RBB has to be privatised sooner or later as it is impossible to solve the existing problems in the present political environment," National Planning Commission Member Dr. Shankar Sharma said.

Sharma said that the government would soon launch a ‘strong’ reform package in the banking as well as non-banking field to make the financial sector more competitive.

In the interaction organised by the Bank employees’ union, the unionists demanded that the government take measures to save the Bank.

RBB is presently the bank with the greatest capacity with 1.14 million depositors and over 300 thousand borrowers.

The RBB presently has 211 branches nation-wide, 72 per cent in the rural areas. It operates through 15 different departments at the central level, eight supervision offices at the regional plus the branches. Out of 211 branches, 175 are conducting priority sector credit and deprived sector credit.

Overflow of rivers ruins Dhanusha crops

Janakpurdham, Aug. 29 (RSS): Paddy crops cultivated on about 1,000 hectares of land in Dhanusa district have been destroyed due to overflow of water from embankments constructed along the Bighi and Jamuni rivers within the territory of India.

A number of VDCs lying between the two rivers such as Mukhiyapatti, Musaharniya, Tulsayahi and Jabdi are the most affected by the rivers.

A five foot tall embankment was constructed by India in 1987 along the Bighi river on its right side and along the Jamuni river on its left side

The construction of the embankment has led to blockage of water on Nepalese territory, thereby causing inundation of the VDCs.

A recent meeting held between a Nepalese team and an Indian team comprising the superintendent of the Darbhanga Irrigation Office, Bihar and chief of the district education office Kishori Singh came to the conclusion that both teams will brief their respective governments of the need for carrying out a survey to control the river.

An on-the-spot survey was conducted by then engineer at the district irrigation office Ratneswar Lal Karna in 1987.

Though meetings at technicians level between the bordering districts of both countries are convened every year, the inundation problem arises on Nepalese territory time and again since the meetings have been unable to find an amicable solution, it is stated.

Lumbinigram residential, resort complex to be built

Kathmandu, Aug 29 (RSS): Private enterprise has come up with a scheme, which, it is hoped, will help in the development of lumbini, the birthplace of Lord Buddha.

LUMBINI PVT LTD has just launched the Lumbinigram residential and resort complex to be built at a l0 minutes’ walking distance from the Lumbini sacred garden.

The idea for the complex was inspired by the notion that Lumbini will truely develop only if a permanent Buddhist community settles there, company chairman Bijaya Bajracharya said at a promotional meeting the other day. Promoters of the residential and resort complex feel that instead of just complaining about lack of progress under the Lumbini Development Master Plan, people should be doing something concrete about it themselves.

Bajracharya went on to elaborate that visits to Lumbini by the Buddhist faithful are now confined to a few hours or a few days at most.

People from Kathmandu valley and elsewhere have bought land at Lumbini with a view to building houses and staying there over long periods. But construction work in Lumbini is logistically very difficult, and properties, once constructed, are hard to look after because of climatic and other factors.

There is also the question of security, which was underscored dramatically a few years ago by the murder of the Japanese Buddhist Monk Naotame.

The five Bigha residential and resort complex proposed at Lumbini comprises 54 housing units backed up by infrastructure such as roads, electricity, sanitation, treated water supply, a telephone service and around the clock security, and facilities like tennis and badminton courts, a swimming pool, a nature park, a shopping arcade and a meditation center.

The two storey housing units of 552 sq ft area each sit on 9.5 anna plots of land and purchases can be made under two payment plans. Some of the units have already been booked.

The promoters also speak of a second phase to the project, in view of the new international airport envisaged for that part of the country.