NPC running out of cash for volunteer campaign

KATHMANDU, FEB 12 -

The National Planning Commission (NPC) is short of cash to continue its National Volunteer Campaign. The NPC has mobilized 6,000 volunteers under the effort to clean polluted rivers and settlements, construct private latrines, health posts, school buildings, irrigation facilities and roads, develop flood and landslide control mechanisms and drinking water projects, and carry out literacy campaigns.

Based on the government’s policy, students and teachers from colleges and universities, political parties and their wings, retired civil servants, entrepreneurs, artists, media workers and people from other walks of life have been mobilised as volunteers in various social and development activities.

NPC vice-chairman Dipendra Bahadur Kshetry said that the NPC was running out of money to provide benefits to volunteers from mid-March. According to the NPC, the volunteers are paid Rs 8,000 to Rs 12,000 per month for food and transportation. “The budget will last until mid-March, and we will not be able to continue the programme until mid-July,” said Kshetry.

The NPC needs an additional Rs 30 million in order to continue the campaign until the end of this fiscal, added Kshetry. The NPC has Rs 60 million which it says will last until mid-March. “In the absence of a full budget, we could not arrange adequate funds for the campaign,” said Kshetry.

The NPC has decided to find unspent money under other budget headings before asking the Finance Ministry for more funds. According to Kshetry, volunteers have been vital in providing services to the people in remote areas as government employees are reluctant to stay in such places. “We have recruited local volunteers and they have been providing great services,” said Kshetry.

NPC joint secretary Pushpa Lal Shakya said that the volunteer campaign had largely been satisfactory while there have been some complaints that they have not gone to the field.

The programme, a brainchild of Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai, is driven by the concept that national development is possible only through the participation of citizens. The programme was launched last April. It also aimed to provide monetary benefits to unemployed people while delivering essential services to people through them.

Shakya said that although the volunteers had been appointed for a short period on contract basis, there has been a tendency to continue the job for a longer period. He added that the volunteers had been recruited on the basis of their academic qualification and inclusion quotas. According to him, youths with an academic

qualification higher than SLC have been preferred.

Meanwhile, the NPC has decided to hold stakeholder meetings in different parts of the country to prepare a new periodic plan. The current interim plan expires at the end of the current fiscal year. Such meetings will be held in Ilam, Biratnagar, Hetauda, Kathmandu, Pokhara, Butwal/Bhairahawa, Nepalgunj, Surkhet and Doti/Dipayal.

Source: The Kathmandu Post