Iron and Steels is one of the top three major imports of Nepal. Based on the fact that Nepal has large amount of mineral resources, it is important to explore and exploit them rationally. This research paper is carried out to estimate the iron ore reserve of the iron ore deposits of Pokhari in Nawalparasi which was recently discovered by Department of Mines and Geology (DMG), Nepal. In this research work, the technical and financial assessment of hematite (iron ore) extraction of iron deposits of Pokhari, taking an area of one square kilo meter, has been carried out. The tonnage of iron ore and the overburden (which is quartzite and slate in this case) were estimated considering the mining process to be open cast mining using vertical cross-section method. The depth of hematite zone is taken as 100 m. The iron ore to over-burden (waste) ratio was 1:3.36. The financial analysis was done on the basis of extraction of 3600 metric tons of iron ore per day and 8,64,000 metric tons annually. The return on investment (ROI) is 34%. Thus, the research work indicates that the extraction of large amount of iron ore of Pokhari area is economical and it is a beneficial project.

No abstract

This main objective of the study was to analyze the effectiveness of Payment Service Providers (PSPs) and examine the challenges to PSPs in Nepal with entrance of PSOs with Open Innovation such as Unified Payment Interface (UPI) and its future prospects among the users in Kathmandu valley (includes 3 districts: Kathmandu, Lalitpur, and Bhaktapur), Nepal. The research design was descriptive and analytical type; the research is based on mixed approach having both qualitative and quantitative data. Survey was conducted with total of 435 respondents, 405 respondents were selected using non random sampling for questionnaire. The collection of primary data were through unstructured interviews and structured questionnaire. The data was analyzed using the descriptive statistics and the regression   technique.  The   results   of   statistics showed that there is rising trends and adoption of PSPs among the users in Kathmandu valley.  The  result  of the ordinal regression  analysis  indicated  that  security concern (SC) showed  a  positive  and  insignificant  influence  on  PSPs’ performance  since estimate or coefficient  value  of  this    is 0.13 with  insignificant  value  of  (p=0.308),  whereas  customer service (CS), low transaction fee & Merchant Discount Rate (LTFM) and cross-border peer to peer and peer to merchant transaction (CPTM) showed a positive and significant influence on PSPs’ effectiveness having coefficient value of 0.434, 0.342 and 3.201 respectively with significant value of p=0.008, 0.004 & 0.000 respectively. However, interoperability and regulatory constraints showed a negative and insignificant influence on PSPs’ effectiveness having coefficient value of -0.206 and -0.145 respectively with insignificant value of p=0.165 and 0.241 respectively. The result of second route indicated that cross-border peer to peer and peer to merchant transaction (CPTM) which is the key feature of UPI Nepal has the highest level of influence on PSPs’ effectiveness with exponentiation of the B coefficient Exp(B) =24.548 shows UPI will set an ample challenge to the existing PSPs in Nepal. The research recommended that, PSPs need to enhance the customer service with offering low transaction and MDR. Also, diversifying their business across the border.