The motion was jointly proposed by chief whips of three largest political parties – Nepali Congress (NC), CPN-UML and UCPN (Maoist) – and seconded by 26 lawmakers from various political parties.
Through the motion, political parties represented in parliament have vowed to jointly work toward speedy recovery of damaged physical infrastructures and rehabilitation of the victims.In line with the same proposal, the House sitting also formed a Special Committee on National Disaster Management, Monitoring and Direction led by Speaker Subas Nembang.
Senior and noted leaders are members of the all-party committee. Deputy speaker is the vice-chair of the body while prime minister, home minister, minister for law, justice and parliamentary affairs are ex-officio members of the 73-member body.
Leaders Ram Chandra Paudel, Krishna Prasad Sitaula, Purna Bahadur Khadka, among others from NC, former Prime Ministers Jhalanath Khanal and Madhav Kumar Nepal from UML, Krishna Bahadur Mahara and Top Bahadur Raymajhi from the UCPN (Maoist) are members of the 73-member committee.
"The committee has been formed to implement the major task of the resolution motion that is to monitor and direct the government on rehabilitation and reconstruction works," Nembang announced at the House meeting on Wednesday.
Addressing the sitting, Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Bamdev Gautam responded to lawmakers' queries expressed during deliberations in the House meetings over the last couple of days.
Most of the lawmakers while airing their views had earlier criticized the government for its failure to rescue quake victims and provide relief materials to the needy and for the delayed response in rescuing some victims buried under the debris.
Gautam admitted lapses mainly in taking precaution measures. "Even we have found some weaknesses when we carried out rescue, relief and rehabilitation works ," the home minister said in parliament. "But it isn't true to say that the government has done nothing."
He argued that the government couldn't deliver mainly due to lack of competent human resources trained for disaster rescue tasks and that they faced serious difficulties because of the absence of elected local representatives.
Following the home minister's address, Nembang prorogued the parliament session that commenced on Thursday.
The session was called mainly to discuss the situation after the devastating earthquake on April 25 and following aftershocks and take some crucial decisions for handling the post quake situation.
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