Kathmandu, May 13

The Agricultural Development Bank Limited (ADBL) will start distributing funds under the much-awaited Youth and Small Entrepreneur Self-employment Programme in 25 districts in the initial stage.

Prime Minister Dr. Baburam Bhattarai, during his tenure as Finance Minister, had introduced the Youth and Small Entrepreneurs Self-employment Programme with an aim of creating self-employment opportunities so as to alleviate the rampant poverty in the country. But due to the change in the government and lack of clear policy, the programme could not be implemented for the past three years.

Talking to The Rising Nepal, Tej Bahadur Budhathoki, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), at the ADBL, said that the bank has come up with a work-plan for running the programme.

He said that the ADBL has asked the Programme for preparing a mechanism for the selection of the entrepreneurs.

The ADBL and the Programme Fund have reached an agreement to develop a mechanism in the districts. The mechanism includes representatives of both the organizations, and the district chapter of the Federation of the Nepalese Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FNCCI).

The Programme had planned to organize regional level workshops for this. He, however, said that it has postponed the plan for now owing to a difficult political situation in the country.

As much as Rs. 5 billion fund pooled from various banks and financial institutions has been inactive for years.

The programme had employed 3,200 youths in the past three years.

The programme was conceptualized with the aim of providing self-employment opportunities for the youths who are unable to run their businesses in the dearth of a mechanism providing them with loans without any collateral.

The then Prachanda-led government had proposed the programme with an aim of generating self-employment opportunities for around 700,000 youth across the country.

More than 622,000 youths have applied for the programme throughout the country.

Around 326,000 youths have been waiting for the government’s decision for commencing their businesses taking necessary orientation training conducted by various subsidiaries of Chamber of Commerce and Industry in the districts.

Around Rs. 120 million of the funds was already invested in providing orientation training to the youths who had applied for the programme.