LALITPUR: An INGO, under the United Nations, is paying the fee of three experts of a government committee, which is to strike a deal with the private sectors for the management of the Kathmandu Valley garbage.

"The INGO - Public-Private Partnership Urban Environment (PPPUE) - has assured us that it will pay the three experts to be hired for dealing with the private sector to set up garbage-fuelled energy plant," said Dr Sumitra Amatya, General Manager at the Solid Waste Management and Resource Mobilisation Centre, under the Ministry of Local Development.

"Each of them will be paid Rs 200,000 for the tenure of three months," Amatya, who is also the member-secretary of the committee, said.

The government has already formed a five-member high-level special empowered garbage management committee, headed by Dr Dinesh Chandra Devkota, member of the National Planning Commission. Other members include MoLD secretary Krishna Gyawali; Niranjan Baral, executive chief of the Kathmandu Metropolitan City; secretaries of the Ministries of Land Reforms, Physical Planning and Environment.

Dr Amatya said that they would include three experts in the committee to prepare the Terms of Reference (ToR) for dealing with the private sector. "We have recommended the names of nine experts to the PPPUE for their payment as per the PPPUE rules. Among them, we will finalise the names of three experts tomorrow, who will be hired as the committee members," she said. The government has been working to involve the private sector in managing the valley garbage by setting up energy plant. According to the MoLD, the agreement between the government and the private sector will be signed by mid-December. Then the energy plant will be set up within two years.

Amatya said a discussion is underway for the publication of call for expression of interest (EoI) from the interested firms to establish the garbage-fuelled plant.

Over a dozen private companies have already shown their interests to set up garbage-fuelled plant.