Chief Minister of Karnali Province Mahendra Bahadur Shahi has said that the country would not achieve prosperity without the promotion of the national capital.
Chief Minister Shahi said so while addressing the pre-budget discussion organized by the Finance Committee of the House of Representatives, the lower house of the Federal Parliament, here Wednesday.
He underscored the need of building an export-oriented economy for promoting the national capital. "We are so far dependent on import. It is high time that we brought plans to increase production to boost export," the chief minister said.
Stating that development of physical infrastructure was the first priority for the development of Karnali, he said the federal government's upcoming budget should address this issue.
The Chief Minister said the lack of road and electricity has been hampering the establishment of big industries and development works in Karnali state and stressed on the need of upgrading the Kohalpur-Surkhet road into a 4-lane road.
He said the federal government should pay attention to this matter. Member of the Finance Committee and former finance minister Surendra Pandey said that Karnali should get the 48-megawatt electricity project being constructed under the Bheri-Babai Diversion Multi-purpose Project.
He said, "You (the Karnali province) have right over the power project. The federal government should built the project and gift it to Karnali state."
Pandey said that the Energy Minister and the Finance Minister of the federal government would be called to the committee's meeting and directed to prepare the modality of building the project and handing it over to the Karnali state, saying the demand of Karnali state that the power project of the Bheri-Babai Diversion Project should be given to Karnali was justified.
Regarding budget formulation, he suggested making plans only after analyzing the budget status, human resources and internal capacity
. Karnali province government minister for economic affairs and planning, Prakash Jwala, Karnali province planning commission vice-chair Punya Prasad Regmi, Karnali state assembly finance committee president Amar Thapa, among the speakers, put their views regarding the priorities for the development of Karnali.
