A meeting of the committee on Monday decided to form a nine-member sub-committee and assigned the task of conducting clause-wise discussion on the bill and give final shape to the bill on the authority.Revati Raman Bhandari, member of the sub-committee, said that the committee has been given a five-day deadline to the sub-committee to carry out discussion on all the clauses having amendments proposal, give final shape to the bill and forward it to the committee. The delay in finalizing the bill has stalled the reconstruction of the quake-destroyed infrastructures.
The bill was tabled in parliament on September 15 and the parliament's full house meeting had decided to send the bill to the Bills Committee for finalization.
Bhandari said that the sub-committee will take necessary inputs from all concerned ministries and also discuss the amendments proposed by lawmakers. Tarani Datta Chataut is the coordinator of the sub-committee.
While airing their views in the meeting of the committee, some lawmakers said that chief executive officer of the reconstruction authority should be appointed through an open competition rather than politically appointed.
Bhandari said that other lawmakers said that parliamentarians should also be included in the authority. "They also said there should be a clear provision to monitor the authority's activities," said he.
Just as the Reconstruction Authority, which had been formed through an ordinance, was making preparations to start reconstruction work, it had become inactive as the government failed to replace the ordinance with a bill on time.
Earlier, the bill could not be tabled in parliament UCPN (Maoist) lawmakers demanded revision of some of its provisions. After the government revised the bill and added a provision that a committee comprising three experts will be formed under chief executive officer of the Authority, the bill was finally tabled on Tuesday.
Once the parliament endorses the bill, it will replace the ordinance which was introduced to set up the Authority and eventually reactivate the Authority to carry out reconstruction work in the 28 earthquake-hit districts.
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