Minister Sharma rules out coalition rift over budget

Sudurpaschim, June 22: Minister for Communications and Information Technology Rekha Sharma has clarified that the newly unveiled budget would not be a bone of contention among the coalition partners.     

In a press meet organized by the Press Centre in Dhangadi city today, Minister Sharma assured that efforts were being made to move ahead by correcting the weakness and addressing the grievances towards the Rs 1.86 trillion budget.     

Dubbing the newly unveiled budget a "balanced" one, Minister Sharma, also the Spokesperson of the government, claimed, "The budget is socialism-oriented and pays adequate attention to production."     

On a different note, the Minister ruled out possibility of alternative to the current coalition partners. Stating that since the incumbent government is being run in a coalition of various parties, she, however, mentioned that it would never be like the single party government.     

Minister Sharma further clarified that the ruling party CPN (Maoist Centre) is considering collaborating with the existing partners for an extended period of time.     

As for the early preparedness for disaster risk management, the Minister shared that an agreement had been inked with Radio Nepal, private and community radio and Nepal Telecommunications which will notify the community at risk of disasters in advance about natural disasters. "The incumbent government is sensitive towards disaster response efforts and set to deal with the disaster effectively," she reaffirmed.     

According to her, the private sector was enthused by the government's decision to mark the upcoming decade as the Information Technology Decade (2024-2034).     

She opined that if the information technology sector was developed and managed well, we could attract billions of money in the country.     

"The annual polices, programme and budget as well as the 16th periodic plan include IT related agenda. We are working towards developing and fostering technology sector, thereby envisioning to transform Nepal into an IT hub," she asserted.     

On the legislations about mass media and communications sector, she pledged to revise and update the old laws. (RSS)