Govt limits Indian cooperation in small projects to five areas

 Kathmandu, Oct. 6

The federal government had asked all the local bodies across the country to submit the proposals of small infrastructure development projects for the Indian grant within five areas.

The Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration (MoFAGA) on Tuesday called them to limit their demands in the areas set by the government.

A Cabinet meeting on April 26 this year had decided that the local governments could apply only the infrastructure in education, health, wastage management, water supply and agriculture.

Education infrastructure include community school, early childhood development centre and library, and health facilities include hospital, health centre, yoga centre, blood transfusion centre and birthing centre.

Similarly, infrastructure in agriculture include irrigation, cold store and agricultural produce promotion centre.

According to the Development Cooperation Coordination Division of the MoFAGA, the local bodies applying for the grants for their projects must submit the Detailed Project Report (DPR) of the project, formal letter of the respective local body expressing commitment to share 20 per cent cost, letter of land assurance, and soil testing report in case of road, bridges and buildings.

As per the previous provisions, they had to submit the project site, bill of quantity and design and implementation agency or mechanism as well.

India is supporting the infrastructure projects planned by the local bodies under ‘Small Development Projects Scheme’ since 2003 following a bilateral agreement between the two countries. But the scheme went into hibernation as the two neighbours did not renew it in 2014 and resumed after more than four years.

Two years earlier, in July 2018, Nepal government had tightened the provisions for the Indian grants in SDPS. While India was distributing the grants on its own through its Embassy in Kathmandu before that a new provision made it mandatory for India to sign financing agreement with the Ministry of Finance in Nepal. The funds should be channelled through the government account.

As per the SDPS, India was providing less than Rs. 50 million to the projects of infrastructure development and capacity building in the areas of education, health and community development. However, the government had specified the support areas about six months ago.

If the budget of the project exceeds Rs. 50 million ceiling, additional investment should be made by the local governments, the Federal Affairs ministry said.

India had supported as much as 474 small projects in 2015.

Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 7 October 2020.