The cabinet also formed a three-member committee headed by parliamentary International Relations and Human Rights Committee Chair Padam Lal Biswakarma to recommend names for the proposed Disappearance Commission. Biswakarma is a Constituent Assembly member from the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) while the members of the committee are yet to be named. Both the Maoists and the state security agencies are blamed for forcibly disappearing people during the Maoist conflict between 1996 and 2006.
The committee was formed as provided by recently promulgated ordinance related to disappearance, which aims at digging out the truth about the people who were disappeared both by the Maoist and security agencies during the conflict.
In yet another decision related to government employees, the cabinet approved a voluntary retirement scheme for about 13,000 civil servants who were promoted automatically last year under the new Civil Service Act. “These civil servants who have either served 20 years or crossed 50 years of age can apply for the retirement under the scheme,” said Minister for Tourism and Civil Aviation Hisila Yami emerging out of the meeting. "The government also decided to bring similar scheme to other government employees as well so that the automatically promoted people would not feel segregated by the state," said Yami.
The cabinet decided to open three new universities -- Agriculture and Forest University at Rampur of Chitwan, Mid-Western University in Surkhet and Open University and asked the Ministry of Education to formulate anecessary laws.
The cabinet meeting, which had not met for the last two weeks due to the national convention of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), also directed the Home Ministry to implement the suggestions given by the commission on modernizing the police. It also issued a similar direction to the Ministry for Law, Justice and Constituent Assembly Affairs to implement the report on the jurisdiction of courts.
Recently, a committee headed by Supreme Court Justice Khil Raj Regmi submitted a report suggesting the government to redraw the jurisdiction of various level courts.
The government formed a committee comprising three joint secretaries--one each from the Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Finance and Ministry for Peace and Reconstruction to recommend ways to address the demands of agitating former policemen who deserted the service during the Maoist conflict. The deserters have been demonstrating in the capital everyday demanding their reinstatement.
According to Mahara, the cabinet also formed a high-level taskforce led by Constituent Assembly Member Nandan Kumar Dutta to suggest ways to address the problems created by Koshi embankment breach last monsoon. The task force will have representatives from all the five-ruling parties and opposition Nepali Congress and Tarai Madhes Democratic Party.
Likewise, the government also decided to break the Bagmati Transportation Office into three branches in a bid to provide better service to the people. “There will be three separate offices to deal with heavy vehicles, small and medium size vehicles, and motorcycles,” Mahara said.
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