Regmi expands cabinet to 11 members

KATHMANDU, March 19:

Head of the Interim Election Council Khil Raj Regmi appointed eight other ministers on Monday to give his cabinet a full shape. With Monday´s expansion, the cabinet now has 11 members.

Of the newly-appointed ministers, Riddhibaba Pradhan is minister for women, children, social welfare and land reforms; Bidyadhar Mallik is minister for federal affairs, local development, health and population; Madhav Paudel is minister for general administration, information and communications and education; Shankar Prasad Koirala is minister for finance, industry, commerce and supply; Chhaviraj Panta is minister for physical planning, transportation and urban development; Tek Bahadur Thapa Gharti is minister for agriculture, forest and soil conservation; Ram Kumar Shrestha is minister for youth, sports, peace, reconstruction, culture, tourism and civil aviation; and Umakant Jha is minister for energy, science, technology, environment and irrigation.

Earlier, Regmi had appointed former chief secretary Madhav Ghimire as minister for home and foreign affairs, and former law secretary Hari Prasad Neupane as minister for law and labor.Finance Minister Koirala was secretary of energy for some years. He had resigned from the post a few months prior to his retirement expressing reservations over the elevation of Leela Mani Paudyal to the post of chief secretary. Koirala and a few other secretaries had objected to Paudyal´s elevation to the chief bureaucratic post saying that the latter was junior to them.

Bidyadhar Mallik retired from the post of finance secretary and later worked as financial advisor to President Ram Baran Yadav. Pant retired as secretary of forests, Gharti Magar as secretary of agriculture, Jha as secretary of irrigation, Pradhan as secretary as tourism and Paudel retired as secretary of law.

Ram Kumar Shrestha, who retired as secretary at the ministry of local development, had returned as principal to the school in Gorkha district when UCPN (Maoist) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal was a teacher before the launching of the Maoist insurgency.

Source: Republica