Govt promotes six joint secys in major reshuffle Cabinet move comes a day before poll conduct code takes effect

KATHMANDU, JUL 22 -
A day before the election code of conduct comes into effect, the government on Sunday promoted six joint secretaries as secretaries. Another major reshuffle was also effected on Friday and Sunday among junior civil servants in various ministries.

Among the joint secretaries promoted by a Cabinet meeting are Arjun Bahadur Thapa, who has been made the Foreign Secretary, Sri Ranjan Lakaul, Raj Kumar Malla, Shanker Adhikari, Naiyendra Upadhya and Lok Darshan Regmi. According to Minister for Information and Communications Madhav Poudel, Thapa was given a place at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as the secretary’s position there fell vacant last week after the government appointed the then Foreign Secretary Durga Bhattarai as Nepal’s Permanent Representative and Ambassador to the United Nations.

Thapa has served as Nepal’s Ambassador to the UAE and as Deputy Permanent Representative at the Nepali mission in New York. He will be in office for six months as he will retire in January 2014. Keeping in view the November elections, the five other new secretaries have been made Regional Administrators.

According to minister Poudel, Adhikari, Lakaul, Regmi, Upadhya and Malla have been made administrators for the Eastern, Central, Western,

Mid-Western and Far Western Regions respectively. Suman Kumar Sharma, who was the regional administrator in the west, has been transferred to the Auditor General’s (AG) Office, while Uddhav Baskota, who was at the AG Office, was transferred to the Prime Minister’s Office.

The Cabinet also recommended sending Chief of Protocol Niranjan Man Singh Basnyat as Nepal’s Ambassador to Malaysia, where the Nepali Embassy is without an envoy for the past two years.

The Cabinet meeting also decided to give Rs 500,000 each to former Prime Minister Marich Man Singh, Nepali Congress leaders Chakra Prasad Bastola and Gopal Pahadi and noted poet/singer Dharma Raj Thapa. All of them are suffering from various ailments.

While Singh is undergoing treatment in Medanta Hospital in India, Bastola is in coma for the past seven months in Kathmandu. Pahadai, who is the Central Committee member of the Nepali Congress, is down after a heart attack, while he is also a diabetic, and is undergoing treatment at a hospital in Kathmandu since the first week of July.

In other deicisions taken by the Cabinet, journalist Sushil Koirala has been appointed the General Manager of Gorkhapatra Corporation, while Shiva Hari Shrestha has been made the General Manager of Nepal Food Corporation.

The meeting also cleared a proposal to hire more than 200 mid- and junior-level intelligence officers for the Department of National Investigation which falls under the Home Ministry.

Major reshuffle in police department

KATHMANDU: Keeping in view security issues during the upcoming elections, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA) on Sunday reshuffled 67 Superintendents of Police (SP). As proposed by the police headquarters, Naxal, the ministry also promoted 47 police officials as Deputy SPs and reshuffled their duty stations.

As per the new transfer orders, SP Dhiraj Pratap Singh will be assuming duty at the Parsa District Police Office, while SP Pradhumna Karki has been transferred from the Metropolitan Police Crime Investigation Division to the Chitwan District Police Office. SPs Uttam Raj Subedi and Rabindra Dhanuk have been transferred to Dhanusha and Sarlahi respectively, while Sharad Kumar Khatri has been transferred to Dang and Bishwo Raj Pokhrel to Morang.

Similarly, DSP Binod Sharma has been transferred to Sunsari. Among the other DSPs transferred to various locations are Sujan Joshi, Netra Mani Giri, Devendra Bahadur Pal, Janak Bahadur Shahi and Ramesh Pandit. (PR)

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