Kathmandu, May 10
Sher Bahadur Deuba, president of the main opposition Nepali Congress, has opposed the KP Oli-led government’s decision to build the Kathmandu-Tarai fast track by mobilising national capital.
Deuba obviously has ‘reasons’ to do so.
Speaking at the Parliament on Tuesday, Deuba said the decision to build the ambitious project by mobilising domestic capital will send a ‘wrong message internationally’.
For Deuba, too, building a fast-track road on its own is a good idea but then the international community will take it as a wrong step when it comes to attracting ‘foreign investment’.
The then Sushil Koirala government had tasked an Indian company with the preparation of the detailed project report for the expressway. The Koirala administration was planning to hand over the project construction work to the same company.
Amid all this, Deuba’s kin were trying their bit to ensure that the Indian company bags the project.
But the Oli government, in its policies and programmes for the fiscal 2073-74, has pledged to develop the project on its own by mobilising domestic capital, dealing a blow to vested interests that want the Indian company to build the project.
Deuba drew the government’s attention towards the matter, claiming that then government had already handed over the project to a party by inviting global tender.
Due to political tug-of-war, projects initiated during my premiership have remained incomplete to date even after investment of billions of rupees, he said. Deuba criticised the policies and programmes and described them as temporary, pointing that ministers themselves have described this government as temporary.
Deuba also found time to comment on the government move to recall Nepal’s Ambassador to India, Dip Kumar Upadhyaya.
This government has failed to take action against black marketers, failed to speed up post-quake reconstruction work, failed to implement the constitution and resorted to political meddling in the judiciary, he said. Deuba then accused the government of trying to spoil the environment for consensus by recalling the ambassador.
He asked the government to find a way out of current problems by holding talks with indigenous nationalities, Madheshis and Tharus.
