BRIEFS (Spotlight Weekly)

NEARLY 250 HOUSES AND huts belonging to 100 families at ward no. 1, Hatiya, in Rajbiraj municipality were gutted by fire on Thursday night causing a damage of around Rs 50 million, KANTIPUR daily reported. The fire was ignited from a small hut at the north-western part of the local market. It took nearly five hours for three fire-fighting engines to control the fire. Most of the huts belonged to small shopkeepers and vegetable vendors. Meanwhile, Minister for Information and Communications J. P. Gupta visited the site on Friday and assured that the government would provide immediate relief to the affected people.

A LEADING MULTILATERAL donor agency has presented a draft of action plan for civil service reforms in Nepal. Presenting the draft at a workshop here on Friday, resident representative of the Asian Development Bank Dr. Richard Vokes said the proposed plan includes reorganizing ministries, strengthening constitutional bodies and reforming legislature to improve accountability of civil service. The action plan, prepared by Janet Tay Consultants Pvt. Ltd. for the ADB, has also recommended setting up of anti-corruption court at the Supreme Court.

LALITPUR SUB METROPOLIS HAS put on hold test programs of Hepatitis E vaccine from Friday. According to deputy mayor, Ramesh Chitrakar, the decision was taken as the test programs were being carried out without the permission of the sub-metropolis. A US agency, Walter Reed of Rims Research Unit (WORUN) was carrying out the tests with permission of government authorities.

POLICE HAVE SEIZED US$ 40,000 from four persons while they were trying to smuggle it into the capital. According to Police, four persons ñ Raja Ram Chaudhary, Ganesh Gyawali, Baburam Bhusal and Deepak Adhikariówere carrying US$ 10,000 each in their private parts on the way from New Delhi to Kathmandu via Bhairahawa. The police arrested them at Thankot check-post on last Friday.

THE NINE DAY INTERNATIONAL conference on "Culture, heritage management and tourism" kicked off here last week. Addressing the conference organized jointly by UNESCO regional headquarters in Bangkok and Bhaktapur municipality, deputy Prime Minister Ram Chandra Poudel said the government would extend necessary cooperation in formulating laws to declare Bhaktapur as a cultural city. Ms. Kris Enderson of Nordic World Heritage Center said such heritage needed to be protected in time since it could not be restored to its original state once it is destroyed. Representatives of nine cities of nine countries in the region are participating in the conference.

THE FEDERATION OF NEPALESE Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) and Federation of Bangladeshi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) have reached into an agreement to promote close relations between the private sectors of the two countries. As per the agreement, a joint task force will be constituted in order to study and present necessary recommendations on matters relating to the economic relationship between the two countries, policies, customs duty, tax provision, transit, transportation etc. The task force will present its report within this year. FNCCI President Pradip Kumar Shrestha and FBCCI President Abdul Awal Mintu signed the agreement.

SUGAR MANUFACTURERS HAVE said that the country would be self reliant in sugar, thanks to the increment in its production this year. According to them, the sugar production last year was 40 tons short of the national demand while it is expected to rise this year resulting in a surplus of over 10 tons. The estimated demand for sugar this year is 140,000 tons while the total production by 11 sugar mills in the country is projected to cross 150,000 tons.

NEPAL TEACHERSí UNION (NTU) has announced that it has called off its on-going strike after reaching into an agreement with the government. The union, said to be close to the ruling Nepali Congress, had been organizing protest programs to pressurize the government for fulfilling its professional demands. According to the Ministry of Education, the points of agreement include promotion of school teachers, who have served continuously for 15 years, for one time only. The government has also pledged scholarship to children of teachers who have been killed during the Maoist violence.

THE MINISTRY OF INFORMATION AND Communications has punished chief of the state-run Radio Nepal, Mukunda Prasad Acharya, for failing to supervise content of a comedy presented on the occasion of 50th anniversary of the Radio on Sunday. During the comedy staged in front of King Birendra, some insulting remarks had been made against the Parliament and lawmakers, officials said. The program had also witnessed frequent power failures. Acharya has now been called back at the Ministry and his deputy, Mahesh Adhikary, has been designated as officiating executive director at Radio Nepal.

THE GOVERNMENT HAS INTRODUCED Nepal Road Board Bill 2056 B. S. in the last session of Parliament that will authorize the government to collect road tolls and use the money for repairing roads. According to the Ministry of Works and Transport, at present the annual cost of repairing roads is estimated to be Rs 1.3 billion. However, the government has been able to allocate only Rs 440 million for repair works. Once the bill is passed, the government would save up to Rs one billion in the first year alone and within the next ten years, the toll collected would be sufficient to repair the roads, officials said. Nepal has so far invested Rs 60 billion in developing road network within the country.