Parliamentary committee suggests government to establish 'project bank'

Kathmandu - The Development and Technology Committee under the House of Representatives has called attention of the government to develop the system of selection of projects based on necessity and appropriateness by setting up a 'project bank'. The Federal Parliament's lower house committee meeting on Monday made this suggestion in view of the need of formulating a smaller size budget for the next fiscal year owing to the adverse impact of COVID-19 on the national economy.

Most of the committee members in the meeting suggested the government to develop a system of selecting infrastructure development projects on the basis of policy and process rather than on 'influence' and 'proximity' to power. The committee members underscored the need to make the programme of constructing one strategic road in every election constituency effective.

They underlined the need of selecting the development projects in a balanced and acceptable way to make them result-oriented even with limited resources and budget. The lawmakers demanded that the budget should be allocated to meet the demands of the people and not a particular 'minister' or 'lawmaker'.

They suggested budget allocation by keeping the national pride projects and the ongoing multi-year projects in priority. The meeting held discussions on the plans of the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport for the fiscal year 2020/2021.

On the occasion, Physical Infrastructure and Transport Minister Basanta Kumar Nembang said the infrastructure projects have been badly affected by the impact of COVID-19 and priority would be accorded in the next fiscal year's budget to projects of national pride, strategic importance and ongoing multi-year infrastructure projects.