October 11: Finance Minister Janardan Sharma has said the contract for public construction would have an additional provision with condition to implementation the projects in two shifts.    
During a meeting with the concerned bodies on Sunday for discussions about budget implementation, Finance Minister Sharma said that capital expenditure could not be increased through single-shift work and no rise in capital expenditures would cause a hurdle in meeting the target of economic growth.    
“Development projects rarely meet deadlines, and therefore a double shift is needed to complete the work on time,” he insisted.

He added that the government would pursue a policy of discouraging the culture of intentional dillydallying in the implementation of development projects.     
The finance minister said that preparations are underway to reopen inoperative state-owned industries.    
Likewise, a work procedure granting the permission of seeking the contract of public construction project upto Rs 100 million through labour cooperatives would be finalized soon.    
Also speaking on the occasion, National Planning Commission vice chair Bishwanath Poudel presented an idea of testing the real capacity of contractors before awarding the contract. The trend of awarding 70 percent of projects to a handful of people should be eliminated to step up development.    
The meeting stressed the need of increasing public expenditures and the effective implementation of budget to secure the target of a seven-percent economic growth projected in the replacement budget. -- RSS