Nepal aims to become developing nation within a decade

Aiming to transform Nepal from a least developed country to a developing nation in the next decade, President Bidya Devi Bhandari today unveiled the government's policies for the next fiscal that accorded priority to self-dependency and post-quake reconstruction.
Bhandari presented the new policies and programmes of Nepal's coalition government led by Prime Minister K P Oli for the currentfiscal year in the Parliament.
Bhandari announced that the fiscal year will be the "year of departure towards prosperity".
This was for the first time in the history of Nepal that a woman unveiled the government's policy document as Bhandari is the country's first woman head of state.

The government, through its policy and programmes, announced that the upcoming five years will be theperiod of attaining prosperity and the country will be transformed into a developing country from a leastdeveloped country within a decade.
The policy document accorded priority to achieving balanced economic development and self-dependency with the creation of self employment opportunities within the country.

In the policy document, focus is on post-quake reconstruction.
The government announced additional Rs 300,000 loans with low interest rate, without collateral, to the earthquake victims whose houses were damaged in last year's quakes.
Earlier, the government had pledged Rs 200,000 loans for them.

Some of the highlights of the policy documents included establishing social security fund for farmers, producing 10,000 MW of electricity by 2026, constructing storage tanks of petroleum products in all seven provinces of the country, starting exploration of gas and petroleum products, starting irrigation projects in 22 districts of Terai under the project 'Prosperous Terai' and speeding up Budhi Gandaki and West Seti Hydropower projects.
The programmes announced also included starting of construction of Kathmandu-Nijgadh Fastrack with government funding from next year, free education for marginalised community students, year 2018 to be observed as 'Nepal visit year' to attract one million tourists and thirty districts to be declared as fully literate.

Bhandari's unveiling of the policies and programmes was cited as a reason for the cancellation of her maiden foreign trip to India by Defence Minister Bhim Rawal yesterday.