The National Assembly today, endorsed the Bhutan Education City Bill that was reviewed by the National Council. As amended by the National Council, the National Assembly endorsed that the government may lease the government land to the interested buyers as per the Land Act.
The Works and Human Settlement Minister, Yeshey Zimba, said construction of Education City will begin within the next two months.
However, both the members from the Opposition voted against the Bill. They say the construction of the Education City might be like Thimphu Tech Park which is not serving its purpose. Besides, the site for the construction of the Education City has been identified in Thimphu which is not in line with the policy of balanced economic development, they said.
Opposition member, Damchoe Dorji said Foreign Direct Investments in this case have been given preference to own as much as 100 percent share in the venture. He said as far as he could remember, they could only own 51% in all the present ventures. “Very few people including India in our own region came forward and the only people who showed interest were those companies which had already showed interest before this project was proposed.”
The lukewarm response from the foreign investors is what concerns the opposition, they said.
