Miscellaneous
Foreign secy to lead team for Nepal-India joint panel
Foreign Secretary Shankar Das Bairagi will lead a Nepali delegation to an oversight mechanism that will be set up to address the problems in the ongoing Nepal-India economic and development projects.Foreign Secretary Shankar Das Bairagi will lead a Nepali delegation to an oversight mechanism that will be set up to address the problems in the ongoing Nepal-India economic and development projects.
Indian Ambassador to Nepal Ranjit Rae would head the Indian team whose members are three senior officials from the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu. A Cabinet meeting on Friday decided to form a panel mandated to resolve any outstanding issues related to the India-funded projects in Nepal.
Other members on the Nepali side include joint-secretaries from finance, commerce, physical infrastructure and transport, planning, home affairs, energy and irrigation ministries.
The monthly meeting will assess the progress in India-funded projects in Nepal and resolve any outstanding issues. The panel was formed after criticism that India-funded projects failed to have the expected outcome in Nepal. Sources said the Indian team includes the deputy chief of mission, the economic cooperation counsellor and the reconstruction counsellor at the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu.
The idea of formulating the panel was agreed upon during the recent state visit of Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal to India. A joint statement issued during the PM’s visit said the instrument would “closely monitor progress of the ongoing projects under bilateral economic and development cooperation, address bottlenecks, and complete them expeditiously in a time-bound manner”.