On Oct 27, 2021, KSL organized an Online Provincial Discussion amongst Sudurpaschim Provincial Assembly Members, Secretariat and Ministry Authorities being based on the research study of one of the flagship provincial programs, Chief Minister Integrated Agriculture and Livestock Development Program that prioritizes agricultural development and is currently in its third year of implementation across all nine districts and 88 municipalities of the Province. Hon. Arjun Bahadur Thapa, Speaker chaired the program. Mr. Madam Singh Dhami, Secretary of Ministry of Land Management, Agriculture and Cooperative and Mr. Ram Sigh Dhami, Secretary, Secretariat of Sudurpaschim Provincial Assembly also provided their valuable inputs aligning with ensuring more participation of women; capacity development of the program implementers and beneficiaries; creating more people’s access to information and mobile laboratory service; and managing for insufficient labs, processing centers, storage and collection centers. The forum seemed to have developed consensus that the nation as a whole needs to strategically invest more in making agricultural sector more productive and appealing to more number of people, youths in particular. Marketing of organic production could give a competitive edge to Nepalese products over low-cost foreign products. Hon. Mahesh Dutta Joshi and Hon. Bharat Bdr Khadka, Members of Finance, Development and Natural Resources cautioned that its monitoring during the implementation phase is pivotal.
Similarly, Gandaki Provincial Forum Discussion was also held on Oct 31 with the objective of interlinking local production and economy with urban tourism. Chairing the program, Hon. Netra Nath Adhikari, Speaker of the Provincial Assembly said that though tourism is one of the major contributors in the economic development of the nation, it’s true that urban tourism is not satisfactorily integrated with local production and as a result, local rural economy is not receiving benefits as expected from Pokhara-based tourism. In this context, he appealed for the possible supports especially with regards to having clarity in policy formulation for a balanced tourism. Mr. Gyananedra Poudel, Secretary of Tourism, Industry, Commerce and Supplies and Mr. Hari Raj Pokhrel, Secretary of the Gandaki Provincial Assembly Secretariat both consented to the desperate need of fostering local tourism addressing the challenges like ensuring proper means of transportation, facilitating market, and providing the local farmers with subsidies and loans to motivate them for engaging in production other than service-oriented businesses like home-stays. It was also discussed that the province could tap more on the unique natural beauty, abundant biodiversity, adventure tourism and even cave tourism. Then only, the province could succeed to establish itself as a major tourist destination on the world tourism map and truly materialize the goal of bringing about 2.2 million tourists until 2022 as per the provincial plan.
