House Committee approves Citizenship Bill

The House of Representatives State Affairs Committee (SAC), today, unanimously approved the draft of Citizenship Bill.

The Bill would now be presented to the parliament for final enactment. The Bill proposes April 15, 1963 as the cut off date for providing citizenship certificate – aimed at resolving the years-old problem of denial of citizenship to hundreds of thousands of residents of Terai or Madhes region.

The cabinet had approved the bill on September 6 with the aim of providing citizenship to all those who have been residing in Nepal before April 15, 1963. With the intention of resolving longstanding problem of citizenship of residents of Terai and landless people, the cabinet had okayed the bill as per the commitment expressed by the House of Representatives earlier.

The Bill to amend the Citizenship Act 1963, would enable anyone who can establish the fact that he was eligible for Nepali citizenship on the cut-off date to be awarded the same. It means those who were born before the cut-off date and were permanently living in the country before then would be eligible for the citizenship.

According to the draft bill, a persons needs to produce land ownership certificate or the certificates establishing his birth or permanent residency to get the citizenship. Furthermore, anyone who can gather three Nepali citizens who can vow that he/she is a Nepali citizen can also get the citizenship. The Bill also has provisions allowing citizenship based on mother's name. It also has stringent provisions of punishment for those trying to get it through falsified evidence. If anybody is found to have obtained the citizenship in a wrongful manner, he/she will face prison sentence between one to five years. Likewise, anybody who helps a wrong person get citizenship can face jail sentence between three months to one year.

After the SAC approved the bill this afternoon, Home Minister Krishna Sitaula said that Rules will be formulated within a week after the parliament enacts it. "Within three months we hope to resolve the citizenship problem," he said.

The government plans to provide citizenship before the elections of the Constituent Assembly and to update the voters' list based on that.

"The bill is related with the nationality and livelihood of the people of Terai. This is the greatest achievement for the people of Terai in the last 53 years," said Rajendra Mahato, general secretary of the Nepal Sadbhavana Party (NSP-Anandidevi). nepalnews.com sd Nov 23 06