The SAARC Programming Committee, meeting here Saturday for its 49th session ahead of the 18th SAARC Summit, has decided to close down three regional centres and merge four others, bringing down the total number of such centres from 11 to five.

According to the India TV News, the move aims to end the duplication of work carried out by these regional centres and to reduce the expenditure, a statement from Nepal’s ministry of foreign affairs said. The committee decided to do away with the SAARC Information Centre in Kathmandu, SAARC Human Resource Development Centre in Islamabad and the New Delhi-based SAARC Documentation Centre, according to the statement. 

However, The SAARC Agriculture Centre in Dhaka (established in 1988), the SAARC Tuberculosis Centre in Kathmandu (1982), the SAARC Energy Centre in Pakistan (2006) and the SAARC Cultural Centre in Sri Lanka (2009) will remain open.

It also decided to merge the SAARC Forestry Centre in Bhutan, SAARC Disaster Management Centre in New  Delhi, SAARC Coastal Zone Management Centre in Maldives and SAARC Meteorological Research Centre in Dhaka into one. It will be set up as the SAARC Environment and Disaster Management Centre.

Joint secretaries or equivalent officers from the foreign ministries of member countries participated in Saturday’s meeting, which was inaugurated by Aishatah Liusha Zahir, chair of the programming committee and the leader of the delegation from the Maldives.