Gulmi. Madane Rural Municipality of Gulmi district has slashed the electricity subsidy it had been providing to local people and community drinking water projects. The rural municipality has been providing electricity subsidy of 20 units per month to each household since last year.

The rural municipality has decided not to provide the grant after the Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration and the Ministry of Finance issued a circular not to curtail public expenditure and run distribution-oriented programmes.

Chief Administrative Officer of Madane Rural Municipality, Narayan Prasad Pandey, said that the Ministry would implement austerity policy by cutting unnecessary expenditure.

Chairperson of the rural municipality Mahendra Bahadur Kunwar said that the local government had to take the decision as per the directive of the federal government. Kunwar said that this will cause some financial problems to the poor people and community drinking water projects.