Foreign minister-led team to talk to India over supplies

Kathmandu, October 9

Minister for Foreign Affairs Mahendra Bahadur Pandey has been authorised to talk to India regarding resumption of essential supplies, including petroleum goods, as soon as possible.

A Cabinet meeting held this morning set up a committee under Pandey’s coordination to talk to Indian authorities to ease supplies of essential commodities, according to Minister for Information and Communications Minendra Rijal.

Others on the committee are Minister for Commerce and

Supplies Sunil Bahadur Thapa, Nepal’s Ambassador to India Deep Kumar Upadhayay and secretaries of ministries of

foreign affairs, commerce and supplies, home affairs and finance, Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

While talking to Kathmandu-based American and European ambassadors and envoys at his office yesterday, Minister Pandey had apprised them of the humanitarian crisis Nepal is facing due to lack of essential supplies after the disruptions at Nepal-India border checkpoints for the last two weeks.

Minister Rijal, who is also the government’s spokesperson, said the Pandey-led committee would take up the looming humanitarian crisis in Nepal with Indian authorities, as hospitals and health institutions are running out of medicines and oxygen medical equipment.

A separate committee has also been formed under the coordination of Minister for Commerce and Supplies Sunil Bahadur Thapa to recommend alternative measures and routes to import petroleum products.

The members of this committee include Chief Secretary Som Lal Subedi and secretaries of ministries of commerce and supplies and finance.

Yet another committee has been set up under the coordination of Vice-Chairman of the National Planning Commission Govinda Raj Pokharel.

It will come up with a sustainable and long-term alternative energy policy for the country.

Its members are secretaries of the ministries of energy and science, technology and environment.