Time to resolve to reconstruction: PM Oli

Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has stressed the need of resolving to reconstruction as the country suffered billions in losses due to the earthquake and the border blockade. Inaugurating the 14th Conference of Nepal Engineers' Association at the Nepal Academy here on Wednesday, the Prime Minister said the demand for engineers has increased now for the reconstruction of the development infrastructures and other structures, including the heritages. "The development works to be carried out by the government was moving ahead at a sluggish pace. We have the tendency of going slow in each and every works. Only 150 megawatts electricity has been produced in 105 years in the country which is rich in water resources. It is high time we change this situation and create an environment in which our human resources get the opportunity to find work within the country," he said. Stressing that the country should be developed with own efforts rather than looking up to others, PM Oli said any country will recognise Nepal if we do good work. "However, it is not at all good that works on development are tardy and there is shortfall of electricity in that very Nepal with immense potentiality. We have the resources and technicians with us, we can ramp up investment. Nevertheless, we should look into the reasons as to why we are not able to speed up development works," the PM remarked. President of the Nepal Engineers' Association, Dhurbaraj Thapa, demanded the government for the establishment of engineering university or engineering staff college, for keeping engineers separate from the administration service in government service, among others. He said that big-scale projects have started facing lack of skilled engineers due to trend of brain drain as the engineering sector has not been put in priority and limited the technicians from the opportunity to go in higher-level from administration service although technicians develop infrastructure for the economic development of the country. On the occasion, engineer Bikas Pokharel was honoured with Youth Professional Award while Er Dr Sumitra Amatya, Indiwar Gurung, Er Arbinda Kumar Mishrea were honoured with Outstanding Women Award, Martyr Nabaraj Award and Best Innovation Award respectively. Similarly, United Nation Development Programme bagged Appreciation Award as well as Er Padma Jyoti received Best Entrepreneurship Award and Er Chet Prasad Bhattarai awarded with Lifetime Achievement Award. A conclusion would be drawn after discussion on 33 working papers would be presented in the three-day conference. RSS