Nepali Congress President Gagan Thapa has started making the party's resolve public through daily video messages. Under the theme of 'Good Governance and Prosperity Nepal', Thapa has started presenting the vision and program with concrete solutions to the voters through video messages, addressing the obstacles to development and the frustrations of the citizens.

Thapa, who made public his views on the problems and reforms of the health insurance program on Sunday, had made public his views on the problems seen in infrastructure development and the solutions on Monday. The Congress Central Working Committee has decided to nominate Thapa as the future Prime Minister and has entered the election. Thapa has been studying and researching the work that the government can do in the fields of education, health, agriculture, infrastructure, irrigation and good governance through systemic reforms within five years under Project Government. Since the party has put him forward as the future Prime Minister, he has also taken the responsibility of drafting the party's manifesto. His advisor and advocate Pratap Poudel, who has taken the responsibility of drafting the manifesto, said that the manifesto will be released within the first week of Falgun and before that, the president plans to briefly publicize the main topics of the program through a daily video message in a language that the people can understand. He said that about 18-20 video messages will be released with problems and solutions in all sectors.

‘The draft of the manifesto is being written by setting priorities with ten perspectives on the theme of resolution and progress. The most complicated issue of good governance has been the main primary topic of the manifesto,’ Thapa said, ‘Especially, this issue raised in the Gen-G Movement on 23 Bhadra has been taken up by the special general convention of the Congress. Since it has resolved to take it forward, a concrete resolution will be made on how to maintain good governance, including structural reforms and working methods.’

The Congress is preparing to bring perspectives and programs with concrete plans in the manifesto so that the main perspectives put forward by the special general convention of the party will be made into the party manifesto and the party will work on making them the policy and priority of the government after the election.

According to Poudel, the Congress is preparing a manifesto for this after lengthy discussions and studies with subject-specific experts. "In addition to physical infrastructure, economic development, human development, human needs, and the areas where the common citizen is facing problems, the manifesto has also included human development problems related to progress and respect," Poudel added, "Why couldn't we do it yesterday? Today, we are studying the problems and implementation aspects of economic development, infrastructure, employment, education, health, tourism, agriculture, etc. with concrete preparations on how to implement them and bringing a plan." For this, medium and long-term plans have been separated, including immediate implementation.

Thapa has announced that the insurance program under the health sector will be made a national pride program. He expressed his commitment to immediately start work to eliminate the chaos in insurance, saying that health is not a charity but a security. Health insurance has been started since Thapa became the Health Minister.

Thapa said that he is trying to make arrangements for citizens to receive free health treatment from all government and private hospitals by linking all health-related subsidies with integrated insurance. ‘The insurance program is currently in disarray. It needs to be corrected and improved. We are going to make it a program of national pride. First, we will work to insure every Nepali. For that, we will make a policy that those who can afford it will pay a little, and the state will insure the poor who cannot. For that, Thapa said that resources can be ensured by integrating taxes collected from alcohol, cigarettes and other alcoholic and tobacco products, and social security programs. ‘We can improve the system and provide insurance facilities from all private and government hospitals by coordinating between the three levels of government,’ he said. ‘Another challenge is to prevent insurance leakage and duplication. For that, preparations are being made to strengthen the Insurance Board by developing digital services.’

'Infrastructure cannot be advanced until three dozen laws are amended'

In Monday's video message, Thapa linked infrastructure development to the issue. He said that the law is the main reason why, with a few exceptions, no project can be completed on time. Citing the background that the 48-year-old Road Act has not been amended yet, there are no regulations, and the Public Procurement Act is over 20 years old, he concluded that infrastructure cannot be advanced until three dozen laws are amended. 'Our study says that there are about three dozen laws that need to be amended or repealed for infrastructure to be built on time. Infrastructure cannot be built on time without amending these laws. What should be implemented in which law? We are working on which to repeal,' Thapa said, 'It has been seen that there will be problems since the day of plan selection, all of these should be included in the law.'

He said that since infrastructure is linked to good governance, issues such as transparency, social audit and strengthening regulatory bodies, preventing the tendency to be unable to work due to additional interference, making decisions on time and not selecting projects without ensuring resources should be regulated in the law. ‘Transformative work cannot be done in the infrastructure sector by abusing and giving instructions to employees and contractors. There is a situation where institutional capacity needs to be increased, the way of working needs to be changed and some new risks need to be taken. The methods of monitoring will have to be changed,’ Thapa said, ‘We have prepared to make provisions in the law to prevent collusion and collusion in the name of monitoring, and who works faster, such as the law on awarding contracts for low cost.’