Govt extends term of National Reconstruction Authority

Kathmandu / Dec. 10: The government has issued Social Security Ordinance-2077 in order to clear some legal obstacles to distributing social security allowances to the people of specific groups and categories.

A meeting of the Council of Ministers held on December 3 recommended President Bidya Devi Bhandari to issue and certify the ordinance.

The ordinance issued and certified by the President this week has come into effect, informed Minister for Communication and Information Technology Parbat Gurung on Wednesday.

Minister Gurung, who is also the government’s spokesperson, made the decisions of three Cabinet meetings held on November 30, December 3 and 8 public by organising a press meet.

“The ordinance issued on social security allowance by making amendment to the existing Social Security Act-2018 is of high importance to address problems of people living with specific problems, senior citizens, single women, people with disabilities and the citizens who served the nation even by staying abroad for many years,” Minister Gurung said at the press conference.

The first amendment to the existing Social Security Act has cleared some of the legal hurdles as tabled by the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Some of new provisions mentioned in the Act include addressing the problems of single women aged below 60 years without remarrying, the persons with disabilities under highly physically challenged category and those persons who had been serving the nation for years staying abroad.

The ordinance has paved the way for the government to distribute Rs. 8.8 billion social security allowance to 336,703 single women aged below 60 years, according to Minister Gurung.

According to the new ordinance, all the divorced women who are living single and who are aged over 40 years and those persons possessing identity cards of ‘B’ category disabilities (91,579 persons) will be eligible to enjoy the social security allowance.

Meanwhile, the meeting of the Council of Ministers held on November 30 decided to extend the term of National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) for a year. The term of the NRA is going to expire on December 24, 2020.

The government has also decided to receive concessional loan of Rs. 4.77 billion and Rs. 1.19 billion as grant assistance to be provided by the Asian Development Bank for implementing flood management and river basins programmes.

The Cabinet meeting also decided to extend the term of Colonel Purushottam Dhakal, Ishwar Kumar Shrestha (Tech.) and Achyut Prasad Adhikari (Tech.) by a year.

The government also endorsed the Pipeline-based Petroleum Product (security and regulation) Order-2077 B.S.

Similarly, the Cabinet meeting held on December 3 decided to recommend President Bhandari to the Sexual Violence related Ordinance-2077.

The government had also given authority to the Ministry Agriculture and Livestock Development to purchase 50,000 metric tonnes of urea from Bangladesh through the government-to-government process.

The Cabinet meeting gave a nod to begin a process for acquiring land to construct the bridges along the Nagdhunga-Naubishe-Mugling road section.

Likewise, the Cabinet meeting held on December 8 decided to endorse Early Childhood Development National Strategy, 2077-2088 B.S. and amend Multi-year Contract Criteria-2077.

Also, the government decided to approve Right to Information Regulation (third amendment) 2077 B.S. and promoted Nepali Army’s Colonel Sobhit Bahadur Adhikari to the post of Brigadier General.