4 Special Committee members demand PM call meeting

KATHMANDU, Feb 28: Expressing serious concerns over delay in the peace process, four members of the Special Committee representing the Nepali Congress and the CPN-UML have jointly asked Prime Minister and Coordinator of the Special Committee Baburam Bhattarai to convene a meeting of the committee to start the integration of the Maoist combatants.



Members Ram Sharan Mahat, Minendra Rijal, Ishwar Pokharel and Bhim Rawal wrote a joint letter to the prime minister Tuesday saying their repeated verbal requests to the prime minister to call the meeting were not heard. The Special Committee has not met since its last meeting on February 13. [break]



"We are worried over the lack of promptness in the implementation of previous decisions and agreements on taking the peace process to a logical conclusion, especially emptying the cantonments by completing the integration of the combatants, at the earliest," the members said in the letter to the prime minister on Tuesday.



Rawal told Republica that he on behalf of the members registered the letter at the prime minister´s office on Tuesday morning, as the prime minister did not heed their repeated verbal requests to convene the meeting of the Special Committee to discuss the integration of the Maoist combatants as agreed on November 1, 2011.



He said the government has not implemented the decisions of the Special Committee, especially about preparing integration plan, forming a directorate under the Nepal Army for integration and starting the integration process with promptness.



Though the Nepal Army prepared the plan and submitted it to the prime minister, Bhattarai has yet to finalize it and present it before the Special Committee for discussion.



"The prime minister will take a decision on the request of the members once he returns from Gorkha," said the prime minister´s political advisor Devendra Paudel.



Though the Special Committee had directed the government in January to get an integration plan from the Nepal Army, the prime minister is yet to finalize it and present it to the Special Committee for discussion.



The army has already given its integration plan to the prime minister and the prime minister has also given it to members of the Special Committee in the form of a non-paper.



"There has been no homework to bring an integration plan in the Special Committee," said member Rijal.

Related story

Parliament’s Finance Committee proposes new initiatives to meet...