KATHMANDU, Mar 10: The Ministry of Finance (MoF) has granted permission to recruit over 5,400 additional personnel for the over 25,000-strong Armed Police Force (APF), creating an additional liability of around Rs 1.4 billion annually for state coffers.
We have recently given our consent to the Home Ministry for the recruitment and MoF is ready to bear the additional financial liabilities arising from the recruitment, but only from the coming fiscal year, an MoF official told myrepublica.com. [break]
He further said that the recruitment process has already begun and APF is managing from its own recourses the additional expenditures required immediately.
The recruitment is being conducted in two phases and the first phase, that consists of recruiting personnel and sending them for training, is in the last stage, said the official, adding that the second phase will also start soon. After the end of the ongoing recruitment, the total strength of the APF will reach around 31,000.
Home Ministry has also forwarded another demand for recruiting 5,000 personnel after the end of the ongoing recruitment, but MoF has not yet given its consent to the proposal.
There is little chance this proposal will get cleared by the ministry, which is already under the pressure of huge non-budgetary demands amounting to Rs 26 billion for the first half of the current fiscal year, said the official.
Meanwhile, MoF has begun consultations with stakeholders about another Home Ministry proposal, for recruiting 10,000 additional personnel for the Nepal Police. The proposal, if comes into implementation, will scale up Nepal Police total strength to 66,000.
The additional recruitment is must to ensure effective implementation of the Special Security Plan that the government has been enforcing in a number of Tarai and Hill districts, where the security situation is fragile, said Bigyan Raj Sharma, spokesperson of the Nepal Police.
The Maoists have opposed any recruitment into any of the security agencies in the country, citing the Comprehensive Peace Accord. Last month they briefly seized APF vehicles laden with training logistics along the Prithvi Highway, alleging that the vehicles were carrying arms.