Kathmandu, December 15:

The government of Japan has agreed to extend a grant of Rs 668.8 million to the government of Nepal for the implementation of Non-Project Grant Aid (NPGA), said a statement today.

Tsutomu Hiraoka, Japanese envoy to Nepal, and Vidyadhar Mallik, secretary of the Ministry of Finance, today signed and exchanged the agreement on behalf of their respective governments.

The statement said that the NPGA will be extended for contributing to the efforts of the Nepal government for socio-economic development and poverty alleviation in the rural areas, consolidation of democracy, and the realisation of permanent peace.

The project will come in the form of a foreign currency grant to secure the payments of essential imports required for the above key development activities. The government of Nepal will have to deposit a specified amount of money separately in a bank as a counterpart-fund of the NPGA to be effectively utilised in health, education, local development and economy, reconstruction, rehabilitation and disaster management, drinking water and sanitation, agriculture, local governance and peace building with prior consultation between the two governments.