(Updated at 2010 NST, 1425 GMT)
KATHMANDU, March 25: The cabinet on Wednesday decided to induct two more ministers into the 23-member Council of Ministers. Both new faces are elected Constituent Assembly members from the ruling Unified Communist of Party of Nepal (Maoist). [break]
The new ministers in the government are Mahendra Paswan (Ministry of Land Reforms and Management) and Ram Charan Choudhari (Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare), government spokesperson Krishna Bahadur Mahara told journalists after the cabinet meeting. Paswan belongs to the Dalit community, while Choudhari is a Tharu.
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Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has hitherto been holding the two ministerial portfolios. Land Reforms Ministry had fallen vacant after Matrika Yadav resigned as the minister over a land seizure row in September last year; while the Social Welfare Ministry was without a minister after CPN (Marxist-Leninist) refused to accept the Prime Minister´s offer to take over the ministry when the Maoist-led government was formed in August last year.
The cabinet meeting held at Singha Durbar also transferred six government secretaries, including Defense Secretary Baman Prasad Neupane. Ganesh Raj Joshi, who is currently secretary at the National Information Commission, succeeds Neupane.
Neupane, who was appointed the Defense Secretary by the erstwhile GP Koirala-led government, has now been sent to the Reserved Pool under the Ministry of General Administration with no responsibility. His transfer comes a day after the Supreme Court stayed implementation of a government decision not to extend terms of eight Nepal Army Generals.
Other transferred secretaries included Pratap Kumar Pathak (from Office of the Prime Minister to the Ministry of Industry), Sushil Ghimire (from the National Vigilance Center to the Ministry of Information and Communications), Lila Mani Poudel (from Ministry of Information and Communications to the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers) and Tana Gautam (from Ministry of Industry to the National Vigilance Center).
Mahara also said that the cabinet decided to table the ordinance relating to inclusion in public service in the upcoming meeting of the Constituent Assembly (CA) beginning from next week.
In yet another decision, the cabinet also approved the Non Resident Nepali Regulations and approved the prime minister’s visit to Norway and Finland next week. It also upheld the recent agreement the government reached with the Muslim Joint Struggle Committee and declared four people killed during the recent Tharu movement as martyrs. Likewise, the cabinet also renamed the Mahendra Hospital at Ghorahi in Dang as Rapti Zonal Hospital.
Similarly, the cabinet also decided to give Rs 10 million to the Film Development Board for development and promotion of Nepali films.
