Kathmandu, July 12, 2006

SAARC finance ministers have agreed on a framework for the SAARC Development Fund (SDF) at the first meeting held on Tuesday in Islamabad.

The meeting also endorsed the roadmap for the creation of the fund. SAARC leaders at the 13th SAARC Summit had decided to create the SDF to serve as the umbrella organisation for development funding for SAARC projects and programmes.

The SDF would be professionally managed by a parliament secretariat and would have three windows social, economic and infrastructure, states a press release issued by the SAARC secretariat, today.

The finance ministers meeting finalised the framework forwarded by finance secretaries, who met prior to the ministerial meeting. The broad outline of the framework was developed through the meetings of SAARC Financial Experts held in September 2005 and February 2006.

The SAARC finance ministers considered the recommendations made by the financial experts as they considered all aspects related to operationalisation of the SDF.

The finance ministers approved mobilisation of an initial corpus of $300 million for the social window from the assessed contributions from the member states. This window would primarily focus on the poverty alleviation and social development projects, adds the release.

According to the SAARC secretariat, the economic window of the fund would start with $6.5 million and deal with viable noninfrastructural funding.

The infrastructure window would commence its operation later.

Major shuffle in NSC

The National Sports Council (NSC) made a major shuffle with the responsibilities of its officials here today.

In his bid to give the sporting sector a facelift and to prepare himself a congenial working environment, the NSC member secretary Jeevan Ram Shrestha re-assigned the responsibilities of his crew.

Kamal Khanal was brought in at the sports development department from the personal secretariat while Rudra Dhakal, who had been working at the Administration, was entrusted to oversee district and regional division.

Likewise, Hari Narayan Dhakal was transferred to traditional sports division while Tek Bahadur Bam was given the responsibility to look after associations and organisations.

Other transfers include Keshari Chitrakar to finance department, Krishna Kumar Sharma to NSC swimming pool, Kul Bahadur Thapa to staff administration, Sudhir Pokharel to information and communication, Sambhu Bista to Satdobato swimming pool and Mohammed Islam Jia-Ul Hag to the Store.

Also shifted were Min Sharma to oversee associations and organisations, Santosh Mardan Shreshta to security department, Ram Saran Adhikari to Lalitpur District Sports Development Committee, Gyanendra Shrestha to Kathmandu District Sports Development Committee.