Kathmandu January 23.

The State-2 government has set a target to reduce poverty rate by achieving high economic growth within next five years in order to bring quality change in the living standard of the State’s citizens. The state-2 government has prepared periodic plan approach paper to achieve 11 per cent growth from the existing 6.53 per cent growth within next five years with the goal of high-human development index and prosperous Medhes society for the same. A strategy has been adopted to reduce overall poverty rate of the state to 21 per cent from the existing 27.7 per cent. As per the Economic Survey 2075 BS, a target has been set to achieve economic growth rate of 11 per cent till the end of the first provincial planning increasing economic growth by 0.5 per cent every year taking the gross domestic product of the state of the fiscal year 2018/19 as the basis. The GDP of the state in the previous fiscal year was Rs 444.49 billion. Agricultural production, growth in productivity, creating employment to human resources of the state, increasing local production and linking it to industrialization, quality health and investment in education have been identified as main objective for the same. The approach paper mentioned that private sector would be encouraged to establish and run the industries addressing agriculture and tourism sectors, modern and new technology would be developed and soil conservation and land-use policy would be formulated. State-2 has 74 per cent of the total national production as the province has fertile soil. A total of 89.9 per cent land is cultivated and a total of 565,091 hectares land has the irrigation facility. Irrigational canals are brought from Koshi, Kamala and Bagmati Rivers as these rivers have sufficient water for irrigation in the land. A total of 4000 ponds are made for fishery and it covers 60 per cent of total fish production in the country. The state produces all seasoned crops, vegetables and food grains. Similarly, the State-2 produces 68 per cent mango in the country. The sugarcane is being planted in 53,300 hecters of land and of total 17 suger mills in country, 8 are in the state itself. Maruti cement industry produces average 1.5 lakhs metric tonnes on a yearly basis. The state housing 12.7 percent industry community contributes 16.2 percent of country’s gross domestic production. A strategy has been prepared acting on this figure in a bid to reach provincial GDP worth Rs 683.6 billion during the periodic plan, said Dr Bhogendra Jha, vice chairperson of the provincial policy and planning commission. The total reserved capital worth Rs 115.96 billion is estimated for investment (Rs 172 billion in agriculture, Rs 332 billion in industry and Rs 647 billion in service sector). In this regard, public sector is estimated to contribute 38 percent, private sector 58 percent and cooperatives four percent, said Jha. Public sector is expected to invest in infrastructure, education, health and agriculture, cooperatives in agriculture, small and cottage industry, fiscal arbitration, education and health, according to the approach paper. Of the total investment from the fiscal year, 2076/77 to 2080/81, public sector is expected to invest Rs 437 billion, private sector Rs 668 billion and cooperatives Rs 46 billion. The state’s per capita income is expected to reach USD 1,000 from existing USD 799 during the periodic plan.