Govt gears up for ‘adjusted budget’

KATHMANDU, MAR 21 -
The government has started preparations to introduce an “adjusted budget ” for the current fiscal year within mid-April.

Finance Minister Shankar Koirala has directed ministry officials to prepare for such a budget . However, the officials said the nature of the upcoming budget will be that of a full budget , no matter whatever name is given.

Minister Koirala, talking to the media after assuming the office on Tuesday, had said the ministry would come up with a full budget for the current fiscal year. He had said a full budget was necessary for macro-economic stability and higher economic growth.

The Finance Ministry has lately been lobbying for a full budget for this year, arguing the country needs a full budget to manage necessary resources to meet increased demand from development projects and administrative expenditures, including salary to staff.

Based on the present budget ary arrangement, the ministry says it faces a deficit of more than Rs 6 billion to pay salary to the government staff. Total additional demand stands over Rs 40 billion.

“Preparations have begun to introduce the budget within mid-April,” said a senior ministry official of them ministry. “This budget will have additional arrangements as per the need for resources to fund development activities and recurrent expenditure.”

Finance Ministry spokesperson Krishna Prasad Devkota said preparations are underway to introduce the budget at the earliest. “It would be better to introduce the budget three months before the end of the fiscal year to ensure better implementation,” he said. Devkota said the upcoming budget would not cross the Rs 429-billion ceiling fixed by the National Planning Commission for the current fiscal year.

Failing to introduce a full budget , the Baburam Bhattarai-led government had brought a budget of Rs 351 billion under the budget ary arrangement that the government can spend resources equal to those spent in the last fiscal year. The size of the budget last fiscal year was Rs 386 billion. “As there is limited time to spend the budget , there is no need to increase the size beyond the government’s capacity,” said Devkota.

The ministry is preparing a red book containing the list of budget allocations under each heading for each ministry. The ministry has not prepared the book for this year, and allowed other ministries to fix the amounts under different headings on their own.

The Finance Ministry has asked all the ministries to provide the details of how they have allocated the budget under each heading as well as justification for doing so.

The size of the budget will then be fixed based on the reports submitted by the ministries, according to the ministry officials.

With the introduction of an adjusted budget , the government will have the authority to raise internal loans to meet the deficit which is lacking under the current mechanism.

However, a ministry official said the new budget is less likely to change the target for revenue mobilisation as far as talks have undergone so far. The government aims to raise revenues worth Rs 289 billion.

Although the government has struggled to expedite capital expenditure, revenue collection has remained impressive, particularly due to surge in imports. As of the first eight months of this fiscal year, revenue collection reached Rs 177 billion, against the target of 172 billion, according to the ministry.

Besides introducing a full budget , there has also been an understanding that preparations for the next fiscal year’s budget would be carried out by devising a working schedule in close coordination with the National Planning Commission, said the ministry official.

Cap expenditure at 26 percent

POST REPORT

The government has been able to spend just 26.49 percent of the capital expenditure budget with four months to go before the fiscal year ends. According to the Finance Ministry, capital expenditure stood at Rs 13.6 billion as of February-end, slightly more than the Rs 13.42 billion recorded during the same period last year.

The government has set aside Rs 51.34 billion for capital expenditure. The Finance Ministry said slow expenditure in the first trimester resulted in poor expenditure in this fiscal year.

The failure of the ministries to issue authorization to their implementing agencies to spend the allocated money is another reason that has impended capital expenditure. A half-yearly review of the budget published by the ministry has stated that ministries and agencies failed to authorise the implementing agencies under them to spend 55.66 percent of the allocated budget .

Likewise, the ministries, particularly Education, Urban Development and Irrigation, have not been able to get a majority of their projects approved by the National Planning Commission during the first six months of this fiscal.

However, ministry officials said that expenditure has picked up of late, and there are ample chances that capital expenditure will exceed the allocated budget . “We have received reports that work at major projects is progressing at a very good pace, and we hope that all of the earmarked funds will be spent,” said Krishna Prasad Devkota.

“As the adjusted budget is also set to be introduced this year, we will be giving priority to the existing projects and complete them first.” He added that the ministry would be talking to the secretaries of ministries to speed up projects with a budget of more than Rs 150 million.

Read More

Sanjay Dutt gets 5 years in jail in Mumbai blasts case

NEW DELHI, MAR 21 -

Actor Sanjay Dutt has been convicted by the Supreme Court today in the Arms Act case that he was booked under in connection with the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts. He has been given a 5-year jail sentence. He has served 18 months in jail already.

The actor was arrested in April 1993, a month after the serial blasts that ripped Mumbai apart and left 257 people dead and over 700 injured. Police said the AK-56 found in his house was from the consignment of arms smuggled into the country before the blasts. He was arrested and booked under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act (TADA) and sent to Mumbai's Arthur Road Jail, where he did time for around 16 months before being granted bail.

Mr Dutt received partial relief in November 2006 when a TADA court absolved him of terrorism charges and booked him under the Arms Act for illegal possession of arms. In July 2007, the court sentenced him to six years in jail. He was arrested on August 2 and sent to Pune's Yerwada Jail. He was granted bail by the Supreme Court on August 20.

In his confession upon his arrest in 1993, which he later retracted, the actor had said that mafia don Abu Salem visited his home in January 1993 with Samir Hingora and Hanif Kadawala, proprietors of Magnum Video and alleged close associates of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim.

Mr Dutt said they had brought three AK-56 rifles with ammunition, and he kept one to protect his family. He said that he had asked his close friend Yusuf Nulwalla to destroy the rifle after he heard about the serial blasts.

Murmurs that that Mr Dutt got away because of political pressure allegedly exerted by his family, including his late father, actor Sunil Dutt, have persisted throughout the case. Defence lawyers have questioned why the CBI did not question his acquittal.

The verdict will no doubt bring gloom to the Bollywood fraternity. Three films, Policegiri, Zanjeer and P.K., are under production and nearly Rs. 70 crore is riding on Sanjay Dutt.

Read More

Sherlyn to shoot item song for Kamasutra 3D

Actress Sherlyn Chopra will soon shoot an item song for her debut movie Kamasutra 3D.

Rupesh Paul, director of the film, said the song will be used as a promotional tool.

"Yes, we do have an item number in the film, which will also be used as the promotional song," said Paul.

"The song will be picturised on Sherlyn itself. We will start shooting for the song soon. We might shoot for the song towards the end of the film," he added.

The camera will start rolling for the film from March 20 in Mumbai.

"We will begin with a song sequence. Then we will shoot the rest of the film in Jodhpur," said the director.

Read More

Car bomb blast kills nine in Iraq's Shi'ite south

No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but Sunni Muslim insurgents have stepped up their efforts to undermine Iraq's Shi'ite-led government and foment inter-communal conflict this year.

The bomb exploded in the town of Garmat Ali, around 20 km (12 miles) north of the usually stable oil hub of Basra.

"I was thrown back by the explosion. Then I stood up and ran back to help the victims," said bus driver Hameed Salman, his white clothes stained with blood.

"I carried five bodies myself and put them in some civilian cars to take them to the hospital," he added.

Three police sources said nine people had died. The head of the provincial security committee, Ali Ghanim al-Maliki, put the death toll at 10.

Another car bomb went off in a carpark for government offices in the city of Basra itself, wounding two people, police said.

Iraq's power-sharing government has been all but paralyzed since U.S. troops left more than a year ago. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shi'ite, is facing protests in the country's Sunni heartland, which shares a porous border with Syria.

Violence has increased with the swell of Sunni opposition to Maliki and Iraq's al Qaeda affiliate has urged protesters to take up arms against the government.

Security experts say al Qaeda-linked militants have been regrouping in the western province of Anbar and crossing into Syria to join mainly Sunni rebels battling forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose Alawite sect springs from Shi'ite Islam.

(Reporting by Aref Mohammed; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Read More

Country heading towards polls: Singh

RATNANAGAR, MAR 17 -

General Secretary of the Nepali Congress Prakashman Singh has said the country is now heading towards the second Constituent Assembly (CA) polls.

At a meeting with the cadres of Nepali Congress in eastern Chitwan on Sunday, he directed the cadres to orient towards election as election was in favor of NC now.

As the people are distracted from UCPN (Maoist), the victory of our party is certain, he claimed, and urged all to understand the making of Chief Justice as chairman of the Interim Election Government as a compulsion.

He also expressed the confidence that the election will be held in the slated time.

Singh said there would be no problem in separation of power with the appointment of CJ as prime minister.

Also speaking on the occasion, Youth leader Gagan Thapa stressed on timely CA polls even if it was wrong to make government under CJ.

Read More

Tilganga's cornea donation campaign bears fruit

PRATIBHA RAWAL
KATHMANDU, March 7: Two weeks ago, Yugeen Thapa, 18, died of cardiac arrest soon after he was admitted to Bir Hospital.

While still grieving the untimely death of his son, Rajendra Thapa, Yugeen´s father, contacted Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology (TIO), which runs Nepal´s only eye bank, and asked them to collect the corneas of his dead son.

Thapa, who lives in Gatthaghar of Bhaktapur district, said he is proud that the corneas removed from his departed son´s eyes have helped at least two blind people see the world.

“My son wanted to donate all of his organs,” shared Thapa. “As per his own wish, we wanted to donate not only his eyes but all of his body parts for the benefit of those who needed them. However, due to lack of time, only his eyes could be donated.”

Thapa is more of an exception than norm when it comes to donating body organs of a dead family member.


Yugeen Thapa

Many people are still hesitant to donate even the corneas of their departed relatives. Even the otherwise charitable people shy away from donating their or their family members´ eyes which could help blind people see the world.

There is a huge gap between the demand and the supply of corneas. The rate of cornea extraction is far less compared to the people awaiting cornea transplants. In many cases, even the corneas of people who would have agreed to donate them are lost in lack of proper communication at the time of their death.

To reduce this gap between the demand and the availability of corneas, the TIO launched a cornea-collection campaign two months ago. As part of the campaign, five well-trained counselors have been deployed at two major public hospitals of Kathmandu. After the death of a patient, counselors try to persuade the family of the deceased into allowing them to extract corneas of the dead.

The TIO has currently stationed counselors at Bir Hospital and Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital (TUTH) as part of the cornea-collection campaign. Shankar Narayan Twayana, Manager at the Tilganga eye bank, says they chose Bir and TUTH for the campaign as they are two of the most-visited and less expensive hospitals in the Kathmandu Valley. "Hundreds of people come for treatment at these two hospitals and it is natural that more people would die at the hospitals than elsewhere," explains Twayana. “That is why we have deployed counselors at the two hospitals."



According to Twayana, in the first two months of the campaign its counselors have collected as many as 87 corneas. “It´s a great success," said Twayana. "Had we not organized the campaign, we could not have collected so many corneas in such a short period.”

At the end of 2012, the Tilganga Eye Bank had around 300 blind people in the waiting list for corneal transplantation.

“One third of the people in that list have already got eyesight,” says Twayana. "More people will get corneal transplants in the days to come."

Counselors deployed by the Tilganga Eye Bank said their aim is not just to collect corneas but also to raise awareness about eye donation. “This campaign is dedicated not only to decrease the number of people in need of cornea but also to clear the misconception about eye donation,” shares Suraj Gautam, a counselor.

“Many people still think that eye donation involves pulling out the eyeballs, which is not true,” says Gautam. "We do not remove the eyes from the dead people. In fact, we just peel off the layer of corneas from the eyes."

If the counselors are able to persuade the family of the dead to donate eyes, they contact the experts at the Tilganga Eye Bank, who then reach Pashupati cremation site to extract the corneas.

According to Gautam, they have so far collected 34 corneas from Bir Hospital and 44 corneas from TUTH as part of the campaign. "Doctors, nurses and all hospital staff have been supportive,” he said. "Without them our campaign would not have been so successful. They instantly inform us if anyone dies at the hospital.”


Ram Pyari Karki and Suraj Gautam persuade families of dead for eye donation.

Rama Silwal, in charge of nurses at Bir Hospital, said the campaign is very important because it tries to utilize the corneas which ultimately get burnt along with dead bodies. “This campaign should have been launched years ago," she said. “Patients die almost every day at the hospital. Had the campaign been launched earlier, a lot of people would have benefited by now.”

Persuading the families to donate the eyes of their dead relative is certainly not an easy task. “We meet different kinds of people," said Ram Pyari Karki, another counselor, "Sometimes it´s very difficult to convince them."

Karki said the smile on the face of blind, who become able to see the world after corneal transplants, is what motivates them to go on. “Whenever we see the blind get the eyesight, our happiness knows no bounds," says she. "It is what keeps us going."

Five hindrances for eye-donation

-A significant number of people with corneal problems are in their seventies, which means that restoring their eyesight by transplanting functional corneas in their eyes is usually not possible. Technical experts at the Tilganga Eye Bank say corneal transplant is not useful for people below five years of age or above 75.

-Some people still believe that they would be blind in their next life if they give away their eyes in this life. Such people do not want to donate their eyes.

-Some people belonging to higher-caste don not want to donate their eyes to people belonging to the low-caste. They say they will donate their corneas only if the Tilganga Eye Bank ensures that they are not given to the low-caste people.

-Many deaths that take place at hospitals are police cases, in which it would be impossible for counselors to get corneas. Also, police do not allow the Tilganga Eye Bank to extract corneas from the eyes of dead people whose families cannot be contacted.

-Extracting corneas from those with HIV, cancer, hepatitis, kidney failure, burns and jaundice is fraught with risks.

--
INTERVIEW

We are expanding cornea collection campaign
Shankar Narayan Twayana
Manager, Eye Bank
Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology

How is cornea collection campaign going on?
It is going great. Our main goal is to give eyesight to as many blind people as possible and this campaign has been a success to a great extent. After we launched the campaign, many blind people have got eyesight. I hope people suffering from corneal problems will not have to wait for years go get eyesight in near future.

How difficult is it to get the families to donate the eyes of their dead relative?
In the early days of the campaign, our counselors faced multiple challenges. They have to maintain good relations with everyone at the hospital. By now they have already turned the situation in their favor. They have been getting full cooperation from doctors and nurses. We organize trainings for our counselors every 15 days, which refreshes their skills.

How long will this campaign continue?
The campaign has a long way to go. The outcomes have been impressive as we have collected more corneas through it. We are planning to expand the campaign to other hospitals. In near future, we will send our counselors to other hospitals like Kathmandu Medical College, Patan Hospital and Nepal Medical College Teaching Hospital.

Read More

Bollywood actor's Nepali helper dies mysteriously

NEW DELHI, MAR 06 - Nepali community in Mumbai has demanded proper investigation over the controversial death of a Nepali who was working as a helper at the house of Bollywood actor Ayushman Khurana.

Rudra Prasad Pratap, 27, hailing from Nawalparasi, had been working at the house of the Khuranas for the past five years. "The khuranas still have not returned from Delhi even after the death of Pratap. The body was also given to Pratap's maternal uncle instead of his parents," said Master Thapa, Chairman of Nepali Workers Union, India.

Khurana and his wife were in New Delhi for a business trip last Saturday when Pratap was found dead by the police. His body was taken to Cooper Hospital for post mortem and later handed over to Pratap's maternal uncle, Dilip Gaudel.

"Rudra was quite happy working for the Khuranas and the Khuranas were behaved well with him. I am not aware of any controversies between them," said Gaudel. Gaudel also said that Pratap was planning to return home for marriage soon.

Read More