Kathmandu, June 22:
The Central Bureau of
Statistics (CBS) is preparing to create a separate dataset of all provinces and
local bodies.
As the country has
entered into the federal governance system, every level of government needs
fundamental statistics in order to plan and implement development programmes,
said Director General of the CBS Suman Raj Aryal while speaking at a programme
organised by the Institute for Integrated Development Studies to launch ‘Nepal
Economic Outlook 2017-18’ and ‘IIDA data portal – Nepstat’.
“We are preparing data set for all 763 governments,” he said.
So far the CBS and other government agencies such as the Education and
Agricultural ministries had been collecting and managing data on the basis of
erstwhile political divisions: development regions, zones, districts, and
municipalities and villages.
But, following the creation of provinces as well as municipalities and
rural municipalities entire state setup has been restructured, therefore a new
data set on the basis of new political set up is needed, said Aryal.
Vice-Chairman of the National Planning Commission (NPC) Puspa Raj Kandel
said that the 8 per cent growth target, as projected in the budget document of
the coming fiscal year 2018/19, was achievable.
“The government has announced the growth target on the basis of various
factors such as large infrastructure projects such as Upper Tamakoshi, Melamchi
Water Supply and other development projects and enhanced expenditure capacity
of the government as well as more investment from the private sector,” he said.
However, he said that the governance should be improved.
Exective Director of the Nepal Rastra Bank Nara Bahadur Thapa said that
the country can have up to 12 per cent economic growth so the 8 per cent growth
was realistic.
He was criticizing the IIDS projected 4.2 per cent growth for the coming
fiscal.
“Government has multiple forward looking initiatives. It seems that the
report has undermined those efforts,” he said.
He urged the economists and research institutions to inform and analyse
what was happening in the economy currently, and to project the future outlook.
The report has focused on institutional reforms of public education in
Nepal as it could potentially improve the quality of public education.
“The reason for focusing on such reform instead of increasing allocated
budget in the education sector comes from two reasoning – increasing budget
allocation to education sector puts pressure on already existing budget
deficit, and if the root of the problem is at the governance and structure of
public school system then added resource allocation is not going to have impact
on improving quality of public education,” it read.
Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 23 June 2018.
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