A high-ranking official closely involved in revising the paper informed myrepublica.com that sentences in it that highlight the achievements of the decade-long Maoist people´s war, which have been given prominent place in the document, will be toned down in the revised NDSP.
“That has been one of the major concerns raised by the main opposition Nepali Congress and other major political parties as well as some donors,” said the official, adding that the revision will be completed in a couple of days.
He further said the ongoing revision will also include rewriting some of the phrases that indicate that the government is slowly deviating from its nearly two-decade long commitment to liberal economics. There have been some concerns that the proposed NDSP, which is also a three-year development plan starting from coming mid-July, is quietly promoting socialistic economic ideology, said the official.
The revision will remove all doubts over the government´s commitment to promoting a liberal economic policy with the private sector in the driver´s seat, he added.
Despite criticism from various quarters of the targets that the development strategy paper has set for the next three years, the official said the government is not in a mood to revise those targets. He also refuted allegations that the targets are over-ambitious and stressed that many of them are achievable.
Earlier, speaking at an interaction program, the World Bank´s Nepal representative, Susan Goldmark, labeled some of the NDSP targets ambitious and urged the government to make them realistic.
Goldmark said that the economic growth targets fail to recognize ground realities and hence are difficult to attain.
Similarly, the main opposition Nepali Congress has also rejected the NDSP and called for a massive revision to make it a consensus document. The Nepali Congress even said the strategy paper is not a document of political consensus and so lacks national ownership.
The NDSP has set a target of investing Rs 1,324.5 billion to achieve an average economic growth rate of 7.6 percent and lower the national poverty level to 21.5 percent over the next three years.
The government is planning to mobilize foreign aid worth Rs 233 billion for various programs being implemented from the coming fiscal year.
Likewise, the strategy paper plans to invest Rs 1,151.6 billion out of domestic resources for building up fixed assets.
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