Govt to double investment on infrastructure

Govt to double investment on infrastructure
eKantipur.com, Jan 19 2007

The government is preparing to nearly double its public investment on development of infrastructure in the next three years in order to revitalize the conflict-hit economy.

"We are planning to increase investment on infrastructure by up to 100 percent in the upcoming interim three-year plan, which is scheduled to be implemented from the upcoming fiscal year," said Dr Pushpa Raj Rajkarnikar, member of the National Planning Commission, talking to the Post

He said the interim plan's main strategy will include coping with poverty, and rehabilitation and reconstruction of infrastructure.

"As the private sector is not encouraged to make more investment right now, the government itself is attempting to raise the amount of investment to stimulate the economy in the post-conflict period," he said.

As the current Tenth Plan is to end by coming mid-July, the government is going to introduce the three-year interim plan, instead of giving continuity to five-year plans.

The Tenth Plan has mainly focused on reducing poverty to 30 percent, from 42 percent. The plan seems to have 'accidentally' achieved its target, thanks to soaring inflow of remittance. "We will encompass all successful programs of the Tenth Plan," said Karnikar.

As part of its continued effort to prepare the three-year interim plan, a team of the NPC on Thursday has left for the Far Western Region to consult with local stakeholders.

"This team that will be based in Dhangadhi is scheduled to begin work from Saturday," said Shyam Sunder Sharma, joint secretary at the NPC.

The NPC had assigned each team under the leadership of its member in every development region to carry out necessary consultation for preparing the plan. "Other remaining four teams are also preparing to leave for their respective regions to get views of the locals in plan preparation," he said.

He said all teams are expected to finish their tasks within a month. "Each group will spend around 15 days in the field and prepare a report in the remaining days," he said.

Stating that they are trying to go in-depth in understanding the locals' concerns this time, he said the commission has decided to consult with representatives from the village development committees (VDCs) as well. "During the preparations of the previous Plans, the consultations were limited to district levels," he said.

“Depending on the service customers subscribe to, they can browse the Internet, watch movies and live telecasts, conduct video conferencing, and send and receive large volumes of data, including pictures,” Sharma added.

According to Sharma, subscribing to GPRS will allow mobile phone users to go online, and send and receive small bursts of data, including small video clips and multimedia messages, including high resolution pictures.

While, WCDMA service, which is being introduced for the first time in the country, not only gives faster data connection than GPRS, but also allows clients to hold video conferences.

One of the special features of WCDMA service, besides high speed data transfer, is its ability to telecast videos and television program on real time basis. “In other words, live telecasts or other videos routed via NT's server could be watched on mobile phones instantly, without any glitches,” Sharma said. Apart from that, clients can make video calls with another user who has subscribed to similar service and hold simultaneous data and voice connection, meaning that user can browse the Internet and talk on the phone at the same time, Sharma added.

However, Sharma informed that it is also essential that the phones being used by customer support the services that NT is introducing. “Mobile phones that are 3G, WCDMA or UMTS compatible usually support WCDMA, whereas most of the cell phones available in the market support GPRS,” he added.