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A total of 159 cattle died due to lumpy skin disease in Rasuwa district.

The lumpy skin disease has been broken out in all five rural municipalities of the district. Among them, Gosainkunda Rural Municipality has seen the biggest loss of cattle.

As of now, lumpy skin disease killed 22 yaks and 41 cows of local species in six wards of Gosainkunda, said Livestock Technical Chief at Syafrubesi in the rural municipality, Suresh Badal.

“Efforts are underway to contain the outbreak of the infectious viral disease. Livestock technician' teams are being mobilized at wards”, he informed.

As many as 800 cattle have been infected with lumpy skin disease in Gosainkunda alone. Badal stressed the need to keep the infected cattle in isolation.

The disease has broken out due to the practice of keeping cattle free in open grazing land in highland areas, he said.

Lumpy skin has also caused a loss to the farmers of Naukunda, Kalika and Uttargaya Rural Municipalities of the district.

Technicians of the concerned rural municipalities in the district informed that as many as 1,500 infected cattle are being treated in other local level areas in the district, except Chhodingmo.

According to Kalika Rural Municipality livestock section chief, Buddhinath Neupane, a technical team has been deployed in the rural municipalities in the southern belt of Rasuwa for disease control.

As the infection has mostly affected oxen used for plough, it has direct bearing on the farmers in paddy plantation.

Information Officer at Veterinary Hospital and Livestock Expert Centre, Nuwakot, Dr Bablu Tharu, a total of 13,000 cows, oxen and yaks were infected with lumpy skin disease in Nuwakot and Rasuwa as of July 16.

"A report has come about the deaths of yaks in the Rasuwa highland due to lumpy skin disease", he said, adding, "Our team is heading to the highland to take stock of the situation there".

Dr Tharu further said that medicines have been sent to the lumpy skin infected areas for immediate relief. As many as 411 livestock died of the contagious disease in Nuwakot, he informed.

The Revenue Investigation Department recovered around one quintal gold from Singamangal on Wednesday.

“Acting on a tip off, we conducted a special operation and recovered 80 to 100 kg gold,” Department Director General Nawaraj Dhungana said, adding, “This may be the largest amount of gold recovered in Nepal so far.”

Police said that the gold, passed undetected through the Customs Office of the Tribhuvan International Airport, arrived in Kathmandu on Tuesday's Cathay Pacific flight.

The gold was brought in Kathmandu by concealing in the brake shoes of motorbikes and scooters.

The officials of the Revenue Investigation Department have arrested three persons on the charge of smuggling the gold.

The arrestees have been identified as owner of Ready Trade Dipip Bhujel, the importer of the gold, customs agent Rajendra Rai and the taxi driver.

The identity of the taxi driver has not been ascertained yet.

It has been said that the team of Revenue Investigation Department arrested the trio while they were taking the gold out of the airport area in a taxi (Sun Ba 2 Cha 2324).

Nepal Police spokesperson Kuber Kadayat confirmed that a huge cache of gold was recovered from Sinamangal on Wednesday.

“This is the first time that such a large amount of gold has been recovered. Investigation into the incident is underway. The value of the gold is around Rs one billion,” he said.

A group of business tycoons may be involved in smuggling the gold, Kadayat said.

The gold that had passed from the Customs Office at 2 pm was recovered after three hours.

The police suspect that this group may have smuggled a large amount of yellow metal earlier also.

During the preliminary investigation, it was found that 160 pieces of gold were brought in Kathmandu.

The TIA Customs Office said that it has no knowledge about the issue.

The seized gold has been sent to the Revenue Investigation Department in Hariharbhawan for weighing.

The gold will be taken to the Taksar Department of the Nepal Rastra Bank to identify the purity of the gold.

Some of the staffers of the Customs Department are also under investigation.

Nepse surges by 11. 17 points on Wednesday.

The Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) gained 11.17 points to close at 2,165.24 points on Wednesday.

Similarly, the sensitive index surged by 3.32 points to close at 410. 46 points.

A total of 8,674,109-unit shares of 260 companies were traded for Rs 3. 34 billion.

Meanwhile, BPW Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha Limited was the top gainer today, with its price surging by 10. 00 percent. Likewise, NIBL Samriddhi Fund -2 was the top loser as its price fell by 9.64 percent.

At the end of the day, total market capitalization stood at Rs 3. 18 trillion.

The local residents of Kakani Rural Municipality in Nuwakot and Dhunibesi Municipality of Dhading have decided not to allow the disposal of garbage collected from the Kathmandu Valley (Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur districts) in the Bancharedanda landfill site until the agreement reached previously is fully implemented.

The dumping of garbage from Kathmandu has been halted from July 17 citing the non-implementation of an agreement reached last year between the Kathmandu Metropolitan City and the locals.

The protest in the form of halting waste disposal would continue until the locals' demands are met, said the Kakani Rural Municipality chair Suman Tamang.

However, the KMC has a different take on the matter. The local people should facilitate in acquiring 3,000 ropanis of land in the area to construct a dumping site as the KMC cannot do it all by itself, said the KMC infrastructure advisor Sunil Lamsal.

Having been dumped in Sisdol for the past 15 years, the waste from the Valley has been disposed of in Bancharedanda from 23 August, 2022.

Following a halt in dumping the waste in Bancharedanda by the local people, a writ petition was filed in the court.

The Supreme Court on Monday issued an interim verdict, directing the local level not to implement their decision of charging fees to the garbage-carrying tipper truck and preventing them from disposing of garbage if they refused to make the payments in fees.

But the locals have halted the disposal of the waste in defiance to the verdict issued by the court.

The Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration (MoFAGA) has issued a circular to all ministries, commissions, secretariats, and government agencies, directing them to complete their Organizational and Management survey (O&M) by the mid of December this year. This directive follows a ministerial-level decision made on July 14.

In accordance with the circular, the Ministry has instructed all relevant organizations to conduct the survey in compliance with the Civil Service Act- 1993, Civil Service Rules-1993, Organization and Management Survey Directives of 2066 BS, and the Brief Working Procedure Organization Structure and Quota Review of 2076 BS.

The budget for the current fiscal year, 2023/24, emphasizes the urgency of conducting the O&M survey and mandates the respective ministries and bodies to conclude it by the mid of December this year.

Furthermore, the budget stipulates that no new organizational structures or quotas shall be created during this fiscal year, promising to make existing structure and quotas smart and efficient by the review of the existing structure and quota.

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal inaugurated the field office of the Budhigandaki Hydropower Project amid a program on Wednesday. Budhigandaki Hydropower Project is a 'national pride' project.

The Prime Minister unveiled a copper plaque to formally inaugurate the office.

Prior to this, the Prime Minister took an aerial view of the areas in Gorkha and Dhading vulnerable to the inundation due to the project construction.

He was accompanied by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs Narayan Kaji Shrestha, Minister for Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation Shakti Bahadur Basnet, former Prime Minister Dr Baburam Bhattarai, federal parliamentarians from Dhading and Gorkha, chiefs and chief ministers of Gandaki and Bagmati provinces, the government chief secretary, the energy secretary and the managing director of Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA).

The government has already established the Budhigandaki Hydro Electricity Company with an authorized capital of Rs 60 billion to undertake the 1200-MW Project of national pride.

Similarly, the government has distributed compensation amounting to Rs 34.3 billion for land acquisition related to the project. The distribution process is in its final phase of completion. Around 50,000 people in Dhading and Gorkha districts will be affected by the project.

The detailed project report for the Budhigandaki Project was prepared by France-based Tractebel Engineering in 2014. The proposed dam will be 263 meters high.

The government said that the project will be developed through the mobilization of internal resources. 

The NEA has its larger chunk of share in the project, according to Company Chief Jagat Shrestha.

Despite government assurances of an improved business environment in the country, Nepal has failed to attract significant foreign direct investment in the last fiscal year.  Foreign direct investment (FDI) pledges in the country dropped by 22.20 percent in FY 2022/23. FDI commitments totaled Rs 38.457bn in FY 2022/23 compared to Rs 49.431bn in FY 2021/22.

A total of 327 industries having FDI pledges have been registered at the Department of Industry (DoI) during the last fiscal year. The majority of industries approved by the department are small-scale industries. The DoI approved 297 small-scale industries, 25 medium-level, and five large-scale industries. The department has also approved 64 technology transfer agreements.

The service sector and tourism sector are the two most preferred areas of foreign investors in Nepal in the last fiscal. According to DoI, 82 percent of the registered industries are in the service sector and tourism sector categories. Only nine percent of industries have been registered for the manufacturing sector while it was five percent for the IT sector.

Government officials point out the global economic downturn, the lowering of the minimum threshold for FDI, and the tightening of visa rules for foreign investors by the Nepal government for the decline in FDI pledges. In November last year, the government lowered the minimum threshold for FDI to Rs 20 million from Rs 50 million to attract even the small foreign investors in the country. Since the FDI threshold has been lowered, there is an increment in the number of industries' registration but the investment amount has remained lower than that of the last fiscal year.

There has been growth in the number of companies registered in the IT sector. A total of 16 IT companies were registered in FY 2022/23 compared to seven in FY 2021/22.

FDI commitments also declined this fiscal due to a slowdown in investment commitments from China. The investors from the northern neighbor have been committing the largest amount of FDI in the last several years to Nepal. With China facing economic problems due to renewed Covid-19 crisis, and supply chain disruptions, investment pledges from the northern neighbor have also been affected. 

Nepal falls among the countries that receive the lowest FDI in the world. Despite many talks on attracting FDI in the country, the country has failed to attract foreign investors as expected. At less than one percent of GDP, Nepal’s current levels of FDI are the lowest among similar economies.

Economists and industrialists say it has become imperative to improve the existing policy and structural system to bring more foreign investment into Nepal. According to them, while the immediate reason for the decline in FDI might be the global recession and domestic political situation, there are structural and procedural obstacles in Nepal that discourage investors. 

Despite introducing a one-door system in the Investment Board Nepal and Industry Department, FDI has not come in as expected. “It has failed to facilitate FDI so far because it has failed to become a complete one-stop service center,” the economist said.

In the second week of March, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal had said that the government is seriously working on further simplifying the procedures, fully operationalizing the one-stop service, and developing necessary rules for the automatic approval of foreign direct investments (FDIs) applications. 

Of late, the government has eased procedures related to FDI. The Department of Industry (DoI), the government agency responsible for providing services to foreign investors, has developed a mechanism to approve foreign direct investments (FDIs) through the online channel. The mechanism that allows the department to approve FDI worth Rs 100 million automatically has come into implementation from Jestha 1. 

The private sector says the country has not received the net FDI as per the investment pledges. "The actual FDI inflow is much less than what has been committed by the foreign investors," said Pashupati Murarka, former president of the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI). 

According to Murarka, there was a huge drop in the demand for goods and services in the last fiscal year.  “At a time when domestic investors are reluctant to invest, we cannot expect foreigners to invest in the country,” said Murarka. 

Net FDI inflow plunges by 73.2 percent

Nepal received less than Rs 5bn in net foreign direct investment (FDI) in the first 11 months of FY 2022/23. According to the latest macroeconomic data of the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), net FDI inflow as of mid-June stood at Rs 4.64bn, a decline of 73.2 percent. The country received net FDI worth Rs 17.35bn during the first 11 months of FY 2021/22.

Box 1

Month wise FDI commitment

Box 2

Net FDI in Nepal (First 11 months)

Paddy is Nepal’s main food crop. Agricultural experts say farmers will get better yields if paddy seedlings are transplanted by mid-July. However, plantation has been completed on only around half of the paddy fields because of factors like a long spell of drought, shortage of fertilizers, and the impact of lumpy skin disease on oxen. 

Plantation had been completed on 65 percent of paddy fields by this time last year.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, paddy transplantation has been affected this year due to the late onset of monsoon in Madhes, Kosi, and Bagmati provinces, and lumpy skin disease in Karnali and Sudurpaschim provinces. About 90 percent of the fields in Madhes province, which is considered the country’s granary, are still barren. 

Paddy transplantation has been completed on 95 percent of paddy fields in Sudurpashchim Province.

Jhapa, the largest paddy producer in the country, has achieved 65 percent progress in paddy transplantation by mid-July. However, paddy transplantation has been completed on 95 percent of paddy fields in Kailali—the second-largest producer. Bajhang, a hilly district of Sudurpashchim Province, has made 100 percent progress in paddy transplantation.

Rabindra Kumar Kushbaha of Belgachhi in Gaushala-8 of Mahottari said paddy fields are barren even in mid-July due to a lack of sufficient rainfall. “Some farmers transplanted paddy by making alternative arrangements, but seedlings are drying up,” he said.

Most of the paddy fields of Dinesh Mahato of Gaushala-11 are barren. Mahato, who cultivated paddy in two and a half bighas last year, hasn't been able to transplant seedlings this year. “Seedlings are drying up in the seedbed,” he added.

According to the Agriculture Knowledge Center, Mahottari, paddy transplantation has been completed on only 15 percent of paddy fields in the district so far. “The situation is not worrying yet, as paddy transplantation here continues till the end of July. We might get adequate rainfall by that time,” Ram Chandra Yadav, chief of the center, said.

About 90 percent of paddy fields in Madhesh Province are still barren, according to the Ministry of Land Reforms, Agriculture, and Cooperatives. Paddy seedlings have been transplanted on only 33,773 hectares out of 354,383 hectares in eight districts of the province.

Banke of Lumbini Province has made only 50 percent progress in paddy transplanting. “Transplantation progress was only 15 percent at the beginning of June. Most of the farmers have already prepared seedlings in the seedbed. Transplantation will gain pace if there is adequate rain,” Shakil Ahmed, chief of Agriculture Knowledge Center, Banke, said.

Transplantation has been completed only on the paddy fields in Rapti Sonari, Baijanath, Duduwa, and Khajura and areas that receive water from the Sikta Irrigation Project. “Paddy had been transplanted in all areas of Banke, except Narainpur, by this time last year. Narainpur has made the least progress in paddy transplantation this year,” Ahmed added.

Baglung in Gandaki Province has reported 65 percent progress in paddy transplantation. According to the Agriculture Knowledge Center, Baglung, transplantation has been done on 3,824 hectares out of the total of 5,883 hectares.

56 percent progress in Koshi 

Koshi Province has achieved 56 percent progress in paddy transplantation till mid-July. According to the Agriculture Development Directorate, Biratnagar, this is seven percent more compared to the same period last year. “Paddy transplantation has been completed on 50 percent of paddy fields in high hilly areas, 47 percent in mid-hills area, and 60 percent in Tarai areas,” Prakash Kumar Danig, chief of the directorate, said.

Dangi said paddy transplantation is progressing smoothly in Koshi Province. “We had achieved 49 percent progress in the same period last year. Paddy can be transplanted in Tarai districts until late August,” he added.

Paddy is cultivated on 340,829 hectares out of 826,646 hectares of arable land in Koshi. Of them, paddy has already been transplanted on 191,000 hectares.

73 percent progress in Karnali 

Plantation is going on at a slow pace in Karnali which would have completed transplantation on 90 percent of fields by mid-July. According to Tilak Pandey, an information officer at the Directorate of Agricultural Development, Surkhet, transplantation has been completed on 73.79 percent of paddy fields so far.

Out of 15,240 hectares of paddy fields in Surkhet, transplantation has been completed on 10,023 hectares, or 65 percent. Progress in paddy transplantation stands at 53 percent in Dailekh, 85 percent in Jajarkot, 83 percent in West Rukum, 90 percent in Salyan, 100 percent in Dolpa, 84 percent in Humla, 97 percent in Jumla, and 84 percent in Kalikot.

66.71 percent progress in Gandaki 

Paddy transplantation has been completed on 66.71 percent of paddy fields in Gandaki by mid-July, compared to 79.45 percent in the same period of the last fiscal year.

According to the Directorate of Agriculture Development, Pokahra, most of the districts in the province depend on monsoon rains for paddy. Only 37 percent of arable land in Gandaki has irrigation facilities.

While paddy transplantation has been completed on 50 percent of paddy fields in Gorkha, progress in transplantation stands at 65 percent in Lamjung, 68 percent in Tanahun, 65 percent in Parbat, 40 percent in Syangja, 65 percent in Baglung, 80 percent in Kaski, and 85 percent in Nawalpur.

Highest progress in Sudurpashchim

Sudurpashchim has achieved 92 percent progress in paddy transplantation—the highest among the seven provinces of the country.

According to Keshav Raj Pandey, information officer of the Directorate of Agricultural Development, Dhangadhi, transplantation has been completed on 95 percent of paddy fields in Kailali—the largest paddy producer in the province.

“Likewise, Kanchanpur has made 91 percent progress in transplantation. Thanks to good monsoon rains, transplantation has been completed even on farms that do not have irrigation facilities,” Pandey added.

Transplantation, however, hasn’t made much progress in eight hilly districts of the province, which depend on monsoon rains. “These districts haven’t received rain for the past three to four days,” Yagya Raj Pandey, director of the directorate, said. “Nevertheless, we are hopeful that transplantation will be completed in the province within a week.”

Paddy is cultivated on 179,000 hectares in nine districts of Sudurpashchim. While Baitadi has reported 98 percent progress in paddy transplantation, progress in other districts stands at 90 percent in Darchula and Dadeldhura, 88 percent in Doti, and 85 percent each in Achham and Bajura.