Kathmandu, June 22: Minister for Finance Mahesh Acharya, responding to questions raised by the MPs during question-answer time at the meeting of the House of Representatives today, said that a three per cent of the 12 per cent loan to be issued by the commercial banks had been provided to the poor.

In reply to a question raised by MP Gokarna Raj Bista of CPN-UML, he said the proposed budget had made an effort to consolidate the financial institutions such as the Rural Development Bank and the Small Farmer Development Project in order to improve economic status of the farmers of rural area and increase flow of loan to such community.

Replying to the another question, Minister Acharya said that usefulness of the foreign assistance in the task of national development was immense and a policy concerning foreign assistance was slated to be tabled at the parliament within the next two weeks.

It is not true that the Udaypur Cement Factory is to be privatised, he said, making it clear that the government would devote its attention to improve the factory management.

He further said that the government would privatise only those government undertakings for which the formalities for privatisation have already been accomplished.

He said this in reply to a question raised by Suresh Kumar Karki of CPN-UML.

The House of Representatives, at its meeting today accepted the proposal for seeking consideration of Alcoholic Beverage (first amendment) Bill 2057 B.S.

Earlier, furnishing replies to the questions raised during general discussion on the bills, Finance Minister Mahesh Acharya made it clear that the shortcomings in the proposed bill would be corrected after clausewise discussion in the concerned committee.

MP Prakash Jwala from CPN-UML took part in the general discussion on the bill.

Meanwhile, Deputy Speaker Mrs Chitralekha Yadav adjourned the meeting of the House of Representatives for 15 minutes after the MPs of the main opposition party raised voice in connection with the incorrect statistics relating to the village development committees enjoying telephone facilities.

Earlier, CPN-UML MP Raghuji Pant had demanded a reply from the Minister for Information and Communications in connection with the unclear statistics relating to the VDCs have telephone facilities.

Minister for Information and Communications Jayaprakash Prasad Gupta informed the House that telephone services had reached 1,528 VDCs till the month of Asar of the fiscal year 2056-57. Telephone services will be extended to the remaining VDCs gradually, he added.

The meeting of the House of Representatives began after the minister provided this information to the House.