Kathmandu, May 22, 2006

Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala today appointed 11 more ministers, taking the strength of the council of ministers to 18.

Among the new appointees, five will be Cabinet ministers and six Ministers of State. Three Cabinet ministers have been picked from CPN-UML and two from Nepali Congress-Democratic, though one of the NC-D ministers, Deputy Speaker Chitra Lekha Yadav, has not taken the oath of office yet.

CPN-UML’s Rajendra Pandey has been appointed Minister of Local Development, Pradip Gyanwali will look after the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation and the party’s Mangal Siddhi Manandhar has got Ministry of Education and Sports.

Narendra Bikram Nemwang of NC-D will be the minister of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs.

Three Ministers of State have been picked from the NC, two from UML and one from NC-D. Gopal Rai of NC has become the Minister of State for Forest and Land Conservation, Dilendra Prasad Badu is state minister for Information and Communication and Man Bahadur BK will look after the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Urmila Aryal of UML has become the state minister for Women, Children and Social Welfare and Dharmanath Saha of the same party will be in charge of General Administration.

Ramesh Lekhak of NC-D has become state minister for Labour and Transport Management.

CCIA forms ad-hoc committee

A group of carpet manufacturers has dismissed the executive committee of the Central Carpet Industries Association (CCIA) and formed a new ad-hoc committee under the convenorship of Chakra Bahadur Shrestha.

The 21-member ad-hoc committee today seized the CCIA office at Maitighar and threw away name-plates and -boards of the ousted members including president A G Sherpa.

The new committee has accused the ousted president for embezzling CCIA’s fund for supporting the royal regime and suppressing democratic movement. “The whole committee members were in the post illegally for the last two years, though their term was over in January 2004,” said Shrestha.

The 13th annual general meeting (AGM) according to the statute of CCIA was supposed to be held in 2004, but Sherpa deferred it despite repeated requests, he added.

The last AGM of CCIA was held in 2002 and the executive committee led by Sherpa was in the post till yesterday. “We will hold the 13th AGM within next six months and form a new committee,” he said, adding that the new committee will comprise only genuine carpet manufacturers and industrialists.

The past committee misused the CCIA’s fund for publishing King’s photos for unnecessary purposes instead of working in promoting Nepali carpets in the international markets, Shrestha said.