Gurung proposes downsizing federal ministries to 12

Kathmandu- Deputy Secretary General of CPN (UML), Prithvi Subba Gurung, has proposed to reduce the number of federal ministries from existing 25 to 12.

Taking part in the deliberations on the Appropriation Bill, 2081 BS in a meeting of the House of Representatives today, the leader said the number should be downsized, implementing the report of the Administrative Reform Commission.

“Various ministries, subordinate department and district coordination committees need to be scrapped,” he said, underlining the need of increasing the development expenditure. NC lawmaker Ram Krishna Yadav accused the Urban Development Ministry of failing to work as per its objectives, proposing to cut off its expenditures.

CPN (Maoist Centre) lawmaker Purna Bahadur Gharti Magar said the Finance Minister was not able to live up to his promises that budget would not be allocated to projects of less than 30 million from the federal government.

There are 117 projects worth Rs 500 thousand under the Urban Ministry for the upcoming fiscal year, he added.