Prithivi Man Shrestha and Ramesh Shrestha

The government plans to create 677,000 new jobs within the next half of this fiscal year by better implementing the budget’s key programmes and projects.

The ‘Immediate Action Plan for Economic Development and Prosperity’ released by Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai on Thursday seeks to generate the employment from 17 key sectors. The government also aims to mobilise 1 million volunteers for participatory development programmes.

The government will create 240,000 jobs by conducting employment centric programmes such as Youth Self-Employment and programmes in the agriculture sector are expected to create 150,000 new employment opportunities.

Tourism, energy rural and urban development and activities for investment promotion have been identified as the major driver for employment generation. Most of the programmes and projects are scheduled to be completed by the end of this fiscal year.

The government has identified 10 big projects as ‘National Pride Projects’ and committed that it will not let them face shortages of resources and staff. It also pledged to ensure strike-free environment in these projects.

Most of the programmes in the plan are old ones, but through this action plan, the government has fixed the deadline for the completion of the programmes. “We introduced the plan to give a big push to national priority projects to achieve a big leap in economic growth,” said Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai, unveiling the action plan.

Under the action plan, the government seeks to take a number of measures to achieve the desired results in specific sectors.

In the agriculture sector, the government will prepare a national land use policy within the next two months, open Agriculture Input Company with private sector participation, chemical fertiliser company and organic fertiliser factory. It will also provide irrigation facility to 39 hectares of cultivable land within this fiscal year and to the entire cultivatable land within the next seven years.

Other plans under the agriculture sector are Apple Mission Campaign in Karnali and mountainous regions, production plan to make country self-reliant on meat, fruits and vegetables.

The year 2013 has also been planned to be declared as ‘Agriculture Year’ to boost output.

Amid complaints that the Nepal Tourism Year 2011 could not attract the targeted number of tourists due to inadequate international flights of the national flag carrier, the government has vowed to buy two aircraft for the Nepal Airlines Corporation. The action plan also aims to add 10,000 new hotel rooms by converting unsold housing apartments into hotels. It seeks to bring 400,000 high spending tourists this year.

Given the extended power outage hours, the government plan seeks to encourage the private sector to make investment in the power sector. Independent power producer will get higher power purchase agreement (PPA) rate for electricity production in certain time, According to the plan.

The government will also formulate a policy under which power producers will receive Rs 1 million as production subsidy for each megawatt of electricity.

Subsidy for solar installation in urban areas, generation of Rs 6 billion from civil servants for hydropower projects as share capital and increasing electricity import volume by repairing transmission lines are other programmes envisioned in the plan.

On the physical infrastructure front, the government plans to complete the opening of track of the Mid-Hill Highway, Kathmandu- Terai Fast Track within this year, linking Dolpa and Mugu district headquarters, alternative highway linking Kathmandu and Naubise.

Except for Kathmandu and Lalitpur, the government will build modern office buildings of 10,000 square feet are each in district headquarters. For the development of the Kathmandu Valley, the action plan speaks about forming Kathmandu Valley Development Authority. Planned urbanisation in district headquarters and other big cities has also been given priority.

The government has targeted to bring foreign direct investment worth $1 billion in the next six months through the investment board.

Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) President Suraj Vaidya said bringing such a huge FDI is not impossible.

A conductive environment for hydropower projects such as GMR and Satalaj alone can bring in the amount, he said.

To ensure investment protection, the government has declared that it will sign Bilateral Investment Protection and Promotion Agreement (BIPPA) and Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement with five other countries, including China. It also talked about easing the process of repatriation of investment to encourage FDI.

For export promotion, the government will adopt the policy of extending short-term credit and get the bills on special economic zones endorsed by the Parliament.

With the business community facing labour unrest frequently, the government has committed to implement ‘no work no pay’ and social security plan for the benefit of both employers and employees.

In order to develop a habit of using domestic products, the government will initiate a campaign named ‘Let’s use domestic product’.

For expanding bank credit to the productive sector, the plan says the government will introduce a policy with a compulsory provision of a certain percent lending in certain areas. It will also initiate ‘New Nepal Building Campaign’ under which a fund will be created by collecting one day’s income of each Nepali citizen and $10 from each non-resident Nepalese. The amount will then be used for economic development, employment creation and infrastructure development.

Published on: 27 January 2012 | The Kathmandu Post