A few months after a former finance minister blamed the World Bank of ignoring Nepal's remote areas, a senior official of the multilateral agency has passed the buck back to the government. Chief Economist and Senior Vice President of the bank Nicholas Stern critcised what he called the centralised development activities in urban areas including Kathmandu.

During a recent interaction in the capital, he pointed out that almost half of the 86 percent of the rural population lived below the poverty line compared to only 23 percent of poor people in urban areas. Stern attributed rural poverty to the lack of basic needs such as drinking water, electricity, health and roads.

In a discussion program organised by the World Bank a couple of months ago, former finance minister and Nepali Congress senior leader Ram Sharan Mahat accused the international financial institution of initially rejecting the idea of rural development. In response, a World Bank official in Kathmandu counter-charged that ministers were more interested in the procurement aspects of projects that bureaucrats are supposed to handle.

During the recent interaction, Stern said conflict and political instability scares away foreign investors. His suggestions included opening up the service sector, maintenance of fiscal stability, development of competitive market, good governance, administrative reforms and infrastructure development.