Kathmandu, December 21

With an aim to enhance the country’s economy, the government has started to list mega ‘game-changer’ projects in its project basket.

In the beginning of the fiscal year, the National Planning Commission (NPC) had called on all concerned ministries, provincial governments and local bodies to provide a list of such projects.

As per NPC, all the concerned stakeholders had submitted their lists of projects to the commission by mid-December.

Kiran Rupakheti, joint secretary at NPC, said they had given strict criteria for the projects that could be selected by the concerned authorities and all have followed the given conditions while selecting projects.

“We had provided a sixpoint guideline for project selection process. We are now studying the various projects that have been submitted and will select the most viable ones which will be included in next fiscal year’s budget,” informed Rupakheti.

He further stated that some projects could have already been listed in the project basket and other projects will be brand new ones.

“We need to create a base for our 16th periodic plan, so we will expedite the process to list the projects in a proportional manner,” Rupakheti said. “At present, we are implementing the 15th five-year periodic plan.”

The NPC had asked the respective authorities to select mega projects, which are effective and would be sustainable in the long term.

“Basically, we want projects that will help enhance the economy.”

NPC had also strictly mentioned that the projects would have to individually contribute 0.5 to one percentage point to the country’s gross domestic product and would have to have multi-dimensional benefit for the locals.

As per NPC’s approach paper, the government will spend Rs 9,229 billion over next five years to achieve the ambitious target of above nine per cent annual growth.

The approach paper of the 15th five-year periodic plan has set a target to achieve a minimum average economic growth of 9.4 per cent per annum in the next five years, though it states that the economy can grow up to 10.1 per cent per annum in the same period based on different scenarios.

Similarly, the approach paper states that the country’s agriculture sector can witness an average growth of 5.6 per cent per annum in the next five years, while the industrial sector can witness average growth of 17.1 per cent per annum. Likewise, the services sector is expected to witness 9.9 per cent growth per annum in between fiscal years 2019-20 and 2023-24.