Farewell to Specialist, DoI

To mark a befitting end to a career spanning 37 years, 5 months and 29 days in the Ministry, Hon'ble Tengye Lyonpo along with Officiating Secretary, Head of Departments, Regional Office of Economic Affairs Thimphu and Policy and Planning Division (PPD) joined Department of Industry colleagues to bid farewell to Mr. Loknath Chapagai who retires today. Mr. Chapagai joined the Ministry as a trainee officer in PPD in 1984.

Hon'ble Tengye Lyonpo expressed the highest gratitude of the Ministry to Mr. Loknath Chapagai and thanked him for his service, and contribution to the Ministry.

Secretary from the COVID Task Force base in Phuentsholing conveyed his deepest appreciation and acknowledgement of the specialist's role in the Ministry. And Officiating Secretary recalled his years of working with him, and his professional expertise and guidance.

During his farewell, Mr. Loknath Chapagai shared that change is the only constant factor in life and everyone must be prepared for it. He assured that he will continue to support the Ministry whenever required, and owes to it his professional development. He highlighted the importance of the energy sector's development that enabled large scale heavy industrialization and the move away from a subsistence and small-scale business-based economy when he joined in 1984. His first job was to license backyard rice mills to three decades later reviewing proposals for heavy industries that didn't even exist in the 1980s. Mr. Chapagai praised the professionally open and free deliberations that continues to prevail in the Ministry, and shared it's a hallmark that allows for co-operation and collaboration through a constructive dialogue process.

The expansion of the Ministry to nine departments from the initial two- energy, and trade and industry was a testimony to the key role the Ministry continues to play in the economy. On a lighter note, he described the nation's development through the annals of the Ministry's history when he started his career with a typewriter to electronic typewriter to computers.

Mr. Loknath Chapagai thanked the Ministry and the Royal Government for the opportunities provided to participate in a range of important assignments from policies to regulatory reforms to electricity allocation and pricing to trade negotiations to industry development. He urged the continuation of efforts to improve the investment and business climate, and access to public services as demand by people for better and efficient delivery of services continues to remain a high priority, and these demands change with time and pace of development.