On July 3 and 4, 2017, a regional level workshop on Public Private Partnership (PPP) Policy was organized by the National Planning Commission in Surkhet, Province — 6. The main objective of this event was to disseminate the PPP Policy – 2072 among the business community, newly elected local leaders of village and urban municipalities, and the field level government officials engaged in local initiatives for infrastructure development and management. The workshop was also intended towards creating a critical mass to comprehend the policy and further disseminate to the general people.

Welcoming the participants of the workshop, Dr. Kiran Rupakhetee, Program Director and Chief of PPP Section of NPC Secretariat explained the progress in expediting PPP implementation. He stressed that earlier initiations and the laws need to be consolidated in the form of PPP Act and Bylaws. He viewed that establishment of PPP Centre will accelerate the pace of PPP's implementation.

Addressing the inaugural session, Mr. Padma Bahadur Sahi, FNCCI Chair of Province — 6 emphasized that both public and private sectors should work jointly and share the investment, risk and benefit to expedite economic growth of the country. He viewed that the abundance of natural resources, specially the water resources should be harnessed for overall development of the the Province.  Mr. Dev Kumar Suvedi, Mayor of Surkhet said that the PPP modality should emphasize on initiating local level projects that could be jointly executed by local governments and private investors.

Addressing the inaugural session, Mr Amrit Lamsal, Local Development Officer of Surkhet District underlined that the Government has to focus immensely on creating enabling environment to promote investment in the country.  The Chief Guest of the inaugural session, Mr. Mahendra Prasad Guragain, Regional Administrator, Mid-Western Region highlighted that the PPP policies and Government initiations should focus on bringing both private and public sector for the common national goal for development.

The Chair of the inaugural session, Mr. Mahadev Pantha, Chief District Officer (CDO) of Surkhet, said that PPP will be important in promoting private sector for investment in infrastructure projects. Considering the remoteness of Province —  6, Nepalese entrepreneurs of other provinces should also be attracted to invest in this province.

During the technical session, Dt. Rupakhetee highlighted the essence of promoting private sector through the PPP modality. He emphasized that development could be achieved through mobilizing local resources as well as FDI by encouraging private sector management and its skills in building physical infrastructure and manufacturing as well as services industries.

Other six PPP related papers were presented in the workshop, such as role of private sector and challenges; facets of PPP Policy 2072; issues of governance; international practices; possibility of promoting PPP at local levels; and project cycle. A total of 70 participants: officials of district level line agencies and urban municipalities, civil society, private sector, and media were present in the workshop.    

In the workshop, three groups were formed to critically examine the PPP Policy and to suggest for changes based on the field experience. The groups highlighted the importance of PPP on mobilizing private sector in investing in different economic sectors and recommended a bunch of projects needed for the development of Province — 6.

(Note: This workshop was fourth and the last in a series of four workshops planned for FY 2016/17. First, second, and third workshops were held in Kathmandu on March 14, in Biratnagar on March 29 - 30, and in Gorkha on June 18-19, 2017, consecutively.)