Ambassador Srivastava hands over India-aided college building in Nepal

KATHMANDU: India’s Ambassador to Nepal Naveen Srivastava on Monday handed over the college building of Madan Bhandari Memorial College in Kathmandu built with Indian government’s financial assistance.

Amid a ceremony, the Indian diplomat handed over the college building to the management committee of Madan Bhandari Memorial College.

The ceremony was attended by Nepal’s former Foreign Minister Mahendra Bahadur Pandey, chairperson of college management committee Usha Kiran Bhandari and local politicians.

The project was taken up as a High Impact Community Development Project at the total cost of Nepali rupees 28.64 million under ‘Nepal-India Development Cooperation’, according to a press statement issued by Indian Embassy in Kathmandu.

Since its inception, the college has been imparting quality education. It is affiliated to Tribhuvan University and has over 1500 students from different districts of country and offering variety of courses.

This college is named after Madan Kumar Bhandari, the spouse of Nepal’s incumbent President Bidya Devi Bhandari. Late Bhandari was a popular leader of Nepal belonging to the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) who died in a tragic road accident at Dasdhunga in Chitwan of central Nepal in 1993.

Since 2003, India has taken up over 535 High Impact Community Development Projects in Nepal and has completed 478 projects, according to the Indian Embassy.

“Amongst these, 104 Projects are in Bagmati Pradesh including 40 projects in Kathmandu District. In addition to these, the Government of India has gifted 68 Ambulances and 46 School Buses to various hospitals, health posts and educational institutions in Kathmandu, till date, including one School bus given to this College,” the embassy stated in the press statement.

The embassy said that the implementation of this project reflects the continued support of the Government of India in bolstering the efforts of the Government of Nepal for the upliftment of its people, through creation of education infrastructure.

Also Read: Nepal and India to build two cross-border transmission lines, stepping up energy partnership

(Santosh Ghimire is India Narrative’s Nepal correspondent based in Kathmandu)