Lawmakers urge minister to prioritize culture sector

KATHMANDU: Upper house members have urged Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, Sudan Kirati, to prioritize the culture sector on par with the aviation sector.

Taking part in deliberations on the Appropriation Bill-2080 BS in a session of the National Assembly, Ram Chandra Rai said the attention of the Minister seemed to be just focused on aviation.

As he said, 70 languages are spoken by the indigenous nationalities in Nepal, but their promotion is not the priority of the government. He accused the government of failing to pay heed to protect physical and non-physical entities concerning the area of culture.

He proposed to reduce the budget allocated to the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport while Gopal Bhattarai was of the view of reduction of the budget allocated to the Ministry of Land Management, Cooperative and Poverty Alleviation and Sharada Devi Bhatta proposed to cut off the budget to the Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration.

Taking part in the deliberations, Sonam Gelzen Sherpa advised the government to revise guidelines for the Sagarmatha (Mt Everest) expedition, proposing to reduce the budget allocated under the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation.