18th Parliamentary Session

As summoned by His Majesty the King the eighteenth session of the parliament started its proceedings since last Monday. One important aspect of this year's budget session is that this session has been convened almost a month and a half earlier than in the past with a view to pass the budget by the beginning of the new fiscal year in mid-July. Past experiences have shown that much of the development projects had to be started late due to the delay in getting the budget approved by the Parliament and almost a quarter of a year passes before funds are released for development programames. Moreover, even for administrative purposes the money has to be borrowed as advance. Bringing the budget session forward is a good beginning and all the lawmakers should give due attention towards the passage of budget in time without being biased politically.

In the last ten years after the restoration of the multiparty democracy the Parliament has witnessed many parliamentary exercises and through them it has been able to find out and solve many problems faced by the country. But at the same time it has been noticed with great dissatisfaction that the conduct of the political parties in the parliament has left many people disheartened. Such behaviours have not helped to enhance the prestige of the parliament and the parliamentarians themselves. This has happened despite political parties realising that the parliamentary sessions have failed to attract the people's attentions. However, this time all the political parties seems to have realised the short-comings of the past sessions and importantly, the Speaker of the House of Representatives has cautioned both the treasury and the opposition bench to play a more constructive role to make the session productive, enabling it to deal with the problems faced by the country.

The 18th session is expected to give passage to the several bills which have been registered at the Parliamentary Secretariat which could not be passed in the earlier sessions. It might be mentioned that the last session failed to pass any of the important bills mainly because of some misunderstanding between the ruling and the opposition parties. This time they have shown some compromising attitude to sort out the differences and forge ahead collectively in the national issues. If this can be achieved in this session it will be a significant development in the 10 years of multi-party democracy. If that happens it will further reinforce its status as a sovereign and supreme body capable of looking after the well-being of the country and the people.

Meanwhile, the overall picture of the country in different fields is not rosy. Such as the law and order situation is not good, there is rampant corruption and much has to be done to improve the effectiveness of the administration sector. Against this background, the address given by His Majesty the King while delivering HMG's programmes and policies to the joint Houses of Parliament Friday should be an eye opener to all the lawmakers and as such they should take even more responsible measures in enhancing the dignity of the Parliament and strengthen the multiparty system. His Majesty has said that the government will work towards maintaining a credible law and order situation in the country and guarantee the freedom of life and enable people to enjoy it fearlessly to realise the vision of a democratic as well as prosperous Nepal.

Speaker Tara Nath Ranabhat too while speaking at the Lower House on the opening day of the Session said that the national. political, economic and social spheres are not moving as we have desired. He also said that due to violence people were forced to leave their houses and lack of justice had plagued the lives of people. Taking these into consideration it can be hoped that the lawmakers will show maturity and cooperative attitude to deal with the agenda of peace, administrative reform and corruption control as committed by Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala while assuming power two months ago.