New three-year plan to be ready by July 9
KATHMANDU, June 24:
The National Planning Commission (NPC), the apex policy making body of the government, is releasing concept paper of the next three-year development plan by July 9, a couple of days ahead of the announcement of budget for the next fiscal year.
The NPC has intensified meetings with different stakeholders before giving final shape to the concept paper of the government´s upcoming periodical development plan.
“We will make public the concept paper by July 8 or 9 after incorporating suggestions of the Chairman of the Interim Election Council that will be delivered at the National Development Council (NDC) meeting to be held on July 5 and 6,” Gopi Mainali, joint secretary at the NPC, told Republica on Sunday.
To seek inputs for the periodical development plan, the NPC on Sunday held discussion with secretaries of different ministries. It is holding meeting with leaders of different political parties and representatives of civil society organizations on Monday. It will sit in a meeting with development partners on Tuesday.
“We plan to make final revision of the draft of the concept paper by June 27 before submitting it at the NDC meeting on July 5-6 where Chairman of Interim Council, who is also the chair of NDC, will deliver necessary instructions before the draft is finalized,” he added.
The NPC officials have already held discussions on the draft in five development regions.
The concept paper of the periodical plan should be finalized before the government finalizes the budget for the coming fiscal year. The government formulates budgets for the next three fiscal years as per the priorities laid out in the concept paper.
The draft of the concept paper has prioritized four sectors, including infrastructure and agriculture development, in the next three-year plan with the target of graduating the from the least development country (LDC) to a developing country by 2020.
To achieve the target, the government must achieve at least seven percent annual growth -- an ambitious target as the country´s agriculture and industrial sector are seeing slowdown.
The existing three-year plan had set the target of achieving developing country status by 2030.
The draft of concept paper envisages prioritizing programs focused on development of infrastructure, agriculture, economic sector, and human resource development and effective use of public resources.
These sectors have been put into priority, keeping in view their prospect in upgrading Nepal´s status to a developing country by 2022.
The draft of the concept paper emphasizes development of energy, roads and communications under the infrastructure development program. Similarly, agriculture and economic sectors incorporate programs related to farm commercialization, tourism, industries and trade.
Under the human resource development program envisaged in the plan, the government will make attempts in enhancing skills and capacity of available manpower to increase their competitiveness.
At a time when the government agencies have been failing to utilize allocated budget, the concept paper envisages making officials responsible for implementation of the designed programs. Acknowledging that enhancing the institutional capacity of the officials and setting up effective mechanism are crucial for better performance in program implementation side, the concept paper has attempted to make concerned official more responsible.
The four priority sectors will get as much as 80-90 percent of the total capital expenditure in the budget for the next three fiscal years.
In the existing three-year plan that ends in this fiscal year, the government had identified seven priority areas, including infrastructure, agriculture, education, good governance, environment and national priority projects.
Source: Republica
