The 33rd National Management Convention and Annual General Meeting of Management Association of Nepal (MAN) last week elected few new personalities for its new tenure and at the same time as a part of its felicitation programme the association also recognized few personalities from the private and the government sector. Here in an interview with The Corporate’s Eliza Tuladhar, MAN’s newly elected president Dr Som Prasad Pudasaini who is also the chairman of King’s College and Bina Basnet, the founder principal of Orchid Garden Nepal who received the Women Manager Recognition award this year have talked about their experiences and their respective plans in the near future. 

 

“I will do something different and productive”

 

As the new president of MAN, how do you plan to use your experience in fulfilling your responsibilities?

I have a wide experience in both the national and international management sector. I have worked with the United Nations Population Fund as its country representative and UN advisor for Nepal. I am glad that our members have given due recognition to it by electing me as the association’s new president. The association definitely has great expectation from me and so has the management sector from MAN. I will do something different and productive for the association.

 

What quite essential changes in MAN can pave way for the active participation of private sector?

MAN should be a think tank in the area of management for both government and non-government organisation. While establishing itself as a consultant to both of these sectors, it should be able to generate new ideas for resolving management issues faced by them. We are competent but we are not being able to provide consultancy services. Besides that it is important to improve the quality of trainings that the association provides. In the near future the association will provide trainings to national priority sectors such as hydropower, agriculture and tourism. Adding to it, we also have to improve the quality of our Executive MBA program by consulting evaluation experts from within the country. 

 

Besides some private sectors actors who are still unaware of MAN’s existence and objectives, even some private sector members of MAN are inactive. Why? 

It is not that the private sector is not interested in MAN or the association is not interested to members from the private sector but somehow the association and the private sector have not been able to work together. During my tenure we will meet representatives of the private sector, hold discussions with them for finding the exact problems hindering their participation and possible ways to resolve them. I am confident that such initiatives will help in increasing the participation of the private sector stakeholders in MAN. 

 

As a common forum of professionals from diverse sectors and disciplines, MAN has tremendous role to play in developing management practices. Over the years of its operation how successful has MAN been in developing positive and performance oriented work culture in Nepal?

MAN has been here for almost three decade, it has over 2000 members of which some are life members and some are ordinary members. But only 40 per cent of the total members are actively participating in the association’s activities. So what we have to do is take initiatives to increase the participation of majority of members, remove inactive members and provide membership to new members. MAN is well known for the award it gives and it will continue to make the selection process more rigorous and make the award more distinctive. Over the year the association has become successful to introduce new personalities and felicitate them for their work and the change they brought to the management sector. We have also introduced one more award this year to recognize and felicitate civil servant who made remarkable contribution in the public service sector. 

 

What are the major training and research programme organized by the association?

Some of the key trainings that the association provides are on financial inventory, management skill, tax and VAT. Our trainings are sometimes tailored on the basis client’s request. We have also dome some evaluation projects for local development department and municipalities. However we still lag behind when it comes to performing serious research and evaluation programmes. This remains another of our priorities in the days ahead. 

 

 

“Recognition from the MAN has encouraged us”

 

How does it feel being recognized with the Women Manager Recognition Award 2013?

It feels great. The award recognized Orchid Garden Nepal’s contribution in securing good future for needy children. It has definitely encouraged me to rise much more above my present efforts and to work for a cause that will help to develop our society and create better environment to secure rights and needs of children that are deprived of it.

 

What inspired you to start a care centre for the needy children?

Seven years’ experience as a teacher in Balmandir, Naxal encouraged me to do something for the needy children and the parents who cannot afford quality education for their children. During my tenure there, I came across many parents and guardians who wanted to leave their children thereforever so that they could get good food and education, which was quite disheartening. As a response, on August 1, 2006, Orchid Garden Nepal was establishedto take care of such children, with support from various sources. There are many private day care centres, but rarely any of them are meant to accommodate children from low profile families. We have come across so many women from such families, mostly near construction sites and vegetable markets, who are unable to work or be employed in lack of someone to take care of their children. To address this issue we came up with the idea so as to build the future of their children at our care centre. 

 

You have been working in this sector for a long time. How tough it has been accommodate the children and gather support and funds to take care of them?

It has been almost nine years since we started the Orchid Garden Nepal at Kalopool and it was definitely not an easy task. We started with around 15 children and nowadays we are taking care of 180 children from early morning that is from eight in the morning to six in the evening. We do not have extended summer and winter vacations as our target group of children belong to a group of families that rarely can afford such holidays. We receive funds from various sources and volunteers have been always supporting Orchid Garden Nepal. Volunteers work here for maximum three months. Last year 122 volunteers supported us in catering to our objective. 

 

Now that your work has received such recognition, do you have any plans to extend Orchid Garden Nepal’s to more such children and families?

Ofcourse, the recognition from the Management Association of Nepal has encouraged us and we are planning to open new centres in New Road and Kalimati area. This will require around Rs 4 million annual budget. We are trying to bring together these funds, as it will