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| Sunday, 18 January 2004 |
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Army to add 6,400 troops to current 72,000-strong rank and file KATHMANDU, Jan 17 (AFP) The Royal Nepal Army (RNA) will add 6,400 new recruits to its current force of 72,000 troops to protect multi-million-dollar public utility projects, an army official said Saturday. "The RNA Headquarters had been requesting the Ministry of Finance to sanction 28 million dollars as additional budget to strengthen the army," the source said. Maoist rebels have been fighting for a communist republic in Nepal since 1996 in an uprising that has so far claimed more than 9,000 lives. The Council of Ministers, headed by Prime Minister Surya Bahadur Thapa, approved the army headquarters' plan of recruiting the new soldiers, the source said. "The government approved the recruitment of 6,400 and sanctioned 10.8 million dollars equivalent budget," the source said. The army headquarters also asked state-run corporations, including the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) and the Nepal Telecommunication Corporation (NTC), to pay 8.1 million dollars annually for guards for their facilities. "To pay for the security, the NEA is preparing to revise the electricity tariff which may add at least 10 percent more to the present charge," Harendra Bahadur Basnet of the National Consumers' Society said. "The electricity tariff has been revised more than four times in the past couple of years totaling more than a 160 percent (increase)," he said. |
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