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A Yeti Airlines plane carrying 68 passengers crashed in Pokhara on Sunday. The plane with call sign ATR-72 took off from Kathmandu to Pokhara at 10: 33 am today, police said. According to Sudarshan Bartaula, spokesperson of the Yeti Airlines, there were two pilots, two air hostesses and 68 passengers on board the ill-fated aircraft that crashed between the old airport and the Pokhara International Airport this morning. He said that there were 10 foreign passengers on the plane. Chief District Officer of Kaski district Tek Bahadur Karki said that he has directed the health facilities to be on high alert. More details about the incident are awaited.    

Former skipper of Nepal national cricket team, Sandeep Lamichhane, who was arrested on the charge of raping a minor girl, has been released from jail after posting a bail of Rs 2 million. Saroj Krishna Ghimire, lawmaker of Lamichhane, confirmed the release of the former national cricket team captain. The Patan High Court on Thursday ordered the concerned authority to release Lamichhane. A joint bench of Justi Dhruva Raj Nanda and Ramesh Dhakal today granted Lamichhane the bail. He has been barred from leaving Nepal. A 17-year-old girl had filed a rape complaint against Lamichhane at the Metropolitan Police Circle, Gaushala when he was abroad to play Caribbean Premier League (CPL) from Jamaica Tallawahs. According to the complaint, Lamichhane had allegedly taken the girl to various places in Kathmandu and Bhaktapur on August 21 and raped her in a hotel room the same night.  

Rastriya Prajatantra Party General Secretary Bhuwan Pathak has been elected as the Speaker of Bagmati Province. Pathak, a candidate from the ruling coalition, secured 62 votes while 39 cast votes against him. Seven lawmakers remained neutral. Another candidate for the post of Speaker, Shivaraj Adhikari of the Nepali Congress garnered 36 votes. At least 65 lawmakers voted against him. There are 110 members in the Province Assembly. Jagannath Thapaliya, Parliamentary Party leader of the CPN-UML, proposed Pathak’s candidacy while Yuvaraj Dulal of CPN (Maoist Centre) seconded the proposal. Pathak is a lawmaker under Proportional Representation system.      

After the lifting of import restrictions, the Nepali gadget market is gradually seeing the launches of high-end mobile phones. After Apple launched the iPhone 14 series, the market is all set to get another flagship model from the OnePlus 10T. Launched in the global market last year, the OnePlus 10T could not be released in the Nepali market in 2022 due to import restrictions. Smart Talk Pvt Ltd, the national distributor of OnePlus in Nepal, is launching the 10T today. According to the distributor, OnePlus 10T is laden with various top-end specs including Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor, a 50 MP triple camera, and a 4,800mAh battery. The phone inherits a unibody design similar to the OnePlus 10 Pro. The OnePlus 10T 5G resembles the OnePlus 10 Pro 5G in terms of camera arrangement, but there is a slight difference: the rear panel of the former bulges a little. The OnePlus 10T 5G has also ditched the alert slider. The OnePlus 10T 5G comes up with a large 6.7 inches Samsung E4 AMOLED display along with a screen resolution of 1080 x 2412 pixels. The smartphone has a 20:9 aspect ratio, 120Hz refresh rate, HDR10+, and 10-bit color depth. It is also packed with an under-display, optical fingerprint sensor and face unlock. The phone comes with a triple camera setup which is a combination of a 50MP (Sony IMX766) wide, ultrawide, and macro. The 10T cameras support 10-bit color capture, OnePlus’s Nightscape mode, and offer improved HDR performance. The phone has a 16 MP selfie camera on the front. When it comes to video recording, the rear camera records up to 4K@30fps, 1080p@30/60/120fps, and the front cameras record videos up to 1080p@30fps. The phone has OxygenOS 12.1 based on Android 12. The OnePlus 10T price in Nepal is Rs 94,999 for the 8/128GB variant and Rs 114,999 for the 16/256GB variant. The phone comes in two color options of Jade green and Moonstone Black. The handset is already available for pre-order at the e-commerce portal Daraz.  

Commercial banks will reduce interest rates on deposits effective from Magh (mid-January). With liquidity in the banking sector easing, bankers have decided to reduce interest rates on deposits by 10 percentage points. A meeting of the Nepal Bankers' Association (NBA), the association of commercial bank CEOs, on Wednesday decided to reduce the deposit interest rate effective from mid-January. According to this decision, the interest rate for individual fixed deposits for the month of Magh (mid-January to mid-February) will come down to 11 percent from 12.13 percent currently. Similarly, the interest on institutional fixed deposits has also been set at 9 percent from 10.13 percent. The new NBA President Sunil KC said the decision to reduce the interest rate was made according to the guidelines of the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB). As per NRB's guidelines, banks and financial institutions can reduce the interest rate up to 10 percent. KC, who is the CEO of NMB Bank, was elected for the post of President of the NBA by a special general meeting held on Wednesday after the tenure of Agricultural Development Bank CEO Anil Upadhyaya ended. NBA's decision to slash interest rates came after improvements in deposits in Poush, and the credit-to-deposit (CD) ratio of commercial banks coming down to 86 percent. However, the interest rates on loans will be reduced only from mid-February or mid-March. NBA sources said the bankers decided to reduce interest rates following a request from Finance Minister Bishnu Poudel and Nepal Rastra Bank Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari. The private sector has been protesting against the higher interest rates, arguing that it has made doing business costly for them. After the formation of the new government, the private sector held a series of meetings with the Prime Minister, Finance Minister and NRB Governor where they demanded two things - reduction in interest rates and postponement of guidelines on working capital loans. According to NBA, the base rate will also be revised with the change in the rate of deposits. As the interest rates on deposits and lending are correlated, it will certainly affect the interest rates on loans. As per the NRB data, the banks and financial institutions (BFIs) as of Monday collected deposits worth Rs 5311 billion, an addition of Rs 16 billion in the past five days. Similarly, the total extension of loans stands at Rs 4,778 billion. With the improvement in liquidity position, the CD ratio of banks has come down to an average of 86.65 percent while the interbank rate has also fallen to 6.14 percent from around 8 percent. The central bank had tightened the money supply citing that excessive loans were used to import goods which led the country to a deepening trade deficit and fast depletion of foreign exchange reserves. As a result, the base interest rate increased from around seven percent to up to 11 percent in the past year. Since mid-September, banks have increased their interest rates on fixed deposits by 10 percent to 12.13 percent, while the interest rate on savings accounts is 7.13 percent per annum on average. It has triggered the lending rate to go up to 18 percent a year.  

The price of gold has increased by Rs 500 per tola in the domestic market on Friday. According to the Federation of Nepal Gold and Silver Dealers’ Association, the precious yellow metal is being traded at Rs 103, 900 per tola today. The gold was traded at Rs 103, 400 per tola on Thursday. Meanwhile, tejabi gold is being traded at Rs 103, 400 per tola. Similarly, the price of silver has dropped by Rs 5 and is being traded at Rs 1,365 per tola today.

In a 'season of mergers and acquisitions' in the Nepali banking sector, the proposed acquisition of Civil Bank by the Himalayan Bank Limited (HBL) has moved further ahead with the former's annual general meeting (AGM) approving the swap ratio. The Civil Bank's 12th AGM on Thursday endorsed the swap ratio of 100:80 that the two banks had agreed earlier. This means 100 shares of Civil Bank will get converted to 80.28 shares of Himalayan Bank after the acquisition. According to Pratap Jung Pandey, Chairman of Civil Bank, the unified business will be started within Magh after getting final approval from the Nepal Rastra Bank. For Himalayan Bank, the acquisition has become a sort of a matter of reputation, following the failed merger attempt with Nepal Investment Bank last year. Himalayan Bank started an initiative to acquire another commercial bank after its merger with Nepal Investment Bank Limited (NIB) got derailed at the final stage. The HBL-NIB eight months long merger process was aborted after the 29th annual general meeting (AGM) of HBL held on January 14, 2022, disapproved the plan of merger with NIB. Only 43.63 percent voted in favor of the merger while 42 percent came against the merger. As per the rules, a merger proposal will only be passed after 75 percent of the shareholders of the bank approve it. Three major shareholders of the HBL - Employees’ Provident Fund, N Trading Company, and Chhaya International- stood against the merger. With Nepal Rastra Bank continuously pushing the HBL for the merger, the bank on July 13, 2022, signed an acquisition MoU with Civil Bank. BFIs number declined by 183 in the past decade The number of banks and financial institutions (BFIs) has declined by 183 in the last one decade after NRB announced its merger and acquisition policy. The number of BFIs that stood at 303 in 2012 has come down to 120 as of January 11, 2023. Following the merger, a total of 10 commercial banks, 75 development banks, 61 finance companies, and 37 microfinance institutions have merged with other financial institutions. In 2022, 32 commercial banks, 92 development banks, 78 finance companies, and 111 microfinance institutions were operating in Nepal. Currently, this number has been reduced to 22 commercial banks, 17 development banks, 17 finance companies, and 64 microfinance institutions.

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has directed government authorities to take forward the development of the Budhi Gandaki Hydropower Project. The Prime Minister in a discussion on Thursday instructed Chief Secretary Shankar Das Bairagi to move ahead with all necessary works to start the development of the Budhi Gandaki Hydropower Project. The members of parliament representing different constituencies in Gorkha and Dhading were also present in the discussion. Dahal himself has also been elected as a member of parliament from Gorkha-2. The development of the much-talked-about project has failed to take off despite the government deciding to develop it on its own resources. The newly established Budhi Gandaki Jalbidhyut Public Limited has failed to come into operation with the finance ministry not providing the required Rs 10 million to the company. The company established in early September last year to develop the 1200MW Budhi Gandaki Hydropower Project is awaiting a budget release by the ministry so that it would get a permit from the Office of Company Registrar to commence operations. According to a board member of the company, the finance ministry denied releasing the fund ahead of the election, citing the code of conduct implemented by the Election Commission. “It is not clear when the fund will be disbursed as the new government has just been formed,” the company's director said. Budhi Gandaki is a ready-to-go project as its detailed project report (DPR) has already been prepared and the compensation distribution to the residents of the project-affected areas for the acquired land is also about to complete. The project will be Nepal's largest reservoir-type hydropower project and the total cost of its development has been initially estimated at USD 2.6 billion. The project, which will be built on the Budhi Gandaki River, is located at the boundary between the Gorkha and Dhading districts. However, ensuring adequate resources and closing the project's budget gap will be a difficult undertaking for the government. “As a ready-to-go project following the completion of DPR and almost completed compensation distribution process, the next challenge is to ensure sufficient funds to develop this project,” the board member said. “Once the company comes into operation, our focus will be to complete the financial closure.” A committee headed by the then National Planning Commission Vice-chairperson Swarnim Wagle has recommended the government in 2017 to develop this project with domestic resources. The committee suggested providing viability gap funding that will cover around one-third of the project development cost. As per the report, the government could cover the cost of land acquisition and resettlement of displaced families which could total as high as Rs 94 billion. According to the report, a significant chunk of resources can be generated from government institutions. An infrastructure tax being imposed on imported fuel could be an important source of revenue that can be used to develop the project. “Based on an average increase in petroleum consumption by 10 percent a year, as much as Rs164 billion can be collected from taxes imposed on fuel alone by the fiscal year 2026-27," reads the report. This estimated tax collection was calculated based on Rs 5 per liter infrastructure/carbon tax on sales of petroleum products (except cooking gas) that the government had imposed in 2015 to manage the financial resources for developing the Budhi Gandaki project. From the fiscal year 2018/19, the government started charging taxes under the name of ‘infrastructure development tax.’ The tax was also raised to Rs 10 per liter of petroleum products. According to the report, the extra fund can also be generated from government-owned entities like Nepal Electricity Authority, Employees Provident Fund, Nepal Telecom, Rastriya Beema Sansthan, Hydroelectric Investment and Development Company, Upper Tamakoshi Hydropower Company, Chilime Hydropower Company, Nepal Army, Nepal Police, and the general public could be tapped for the project. The report also stated the resources could also be generated from international donor agencies or by the issuance of project-specific bonds and credits from the project’s suppliers. However, the company’s director said that the government has not yet discussed with the donor agencies about potential funding from them. “This is the option that can be explored once the company comes into operation,” the director said. Massive sums of money have already been spent by the government to compensate the residents of the project-affected areas for the acquisition of their lands. According to the project's Environment, Compensation Distribution, Resettlement, and Rehabilitation Unit, Rs 41 billion has already been spent towards that end. It has been estimated that 58,000 ropanis of land will be needed to develop this project. For the project, hardly any difficulty in land acquisition has been experienced. There is also a broader political consensus for the development of this project with major political parties agreeing on Budhi Gandaki as an important hydropower project to ensure the energy security of the country for the coming decades. In 2017, the Pushpa Kamal Dahal-led government awarded a contract to build the project without competitive bidding to China Gezhouba Group Corporation under the engineering, procurement, construction, and financing (EPCF) modality. This was overturned by the Sher Bahadur Deuba-led government in November 2017. However, in September 2018, the then KP Sharma Oli administration decided in favor of the Chinese company, reversing the decision of the Deuba-led government. In April last year, the Deuba administration again terminated the license granted to the Chinese company as the contractor was not making any progress to move ahead with the development of the project. The government anticipates finishing the project eight years after the commencement of construction works.