Lawmakers demand withdrawal of provision on embossed number plate

Kathmandu: Lawmakers have demanded to withdraw the provision issued by the Department of Transport Management to affix embossed number plates in the vehicles within the current fiscal year.

In course of deliberation on the Appropriation Bill in today’s meeting of the House of Representatives, Nepali Congress lawmaker Gagan Kumar Thapa asked to withdraw the provision as it was not possible to affix the embossed number plate at all vehicles within the current fiscal year.

He urged the concerned minister to see the crowd and problems faced by the general people at the transport office in order to get an embossed number plate.

Discussion on different headlines of the Appropriation Bill-2079 is underway in the meeting. Deliberation on different headlines under the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security, Ministry of Forest and Environment, Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation and Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport is on today.

Lawmaker Thapa opined that it was the main responsibility of Kathmandu Metropolitan City and the Ministry of Urban Development the management the garbage of Kathmandu Valley. Saying they are ready to help to untie the knot of the problem, he drew the government’s attention to resolve problems even after providing an additional budget at Bancharedanda and Sisdole of Kathmandu. Similarly, CPN (UML)’s Bhim Bahadur Rawal spoke against the ruling of the Department of Transport to fix the embossed number plate on vehicles within mid-July and said the tender process of it seemed suspicious.

He was of the view of assessing the comparative benefits of the implementation of this number plate system on users and said providing biometric information to a private company was capable of violating the people’s right to privacy. He urged the government to review its decision to switch to embossed number plates.

As the lawmaker said only limited districts were selected for tunnel construction in the budget for the upcoming fiscal year and questioned how this culture would justify the vision for holistic development of the nation.

Expressing his concern over the Supreme Court verdict in regard to the implementation of the Nijgadh International Airport project, he was of the opinion that the projection should not be stopped when the government had already spent a large fund on it. As he commented, the verdict was itself a violation of the principle of separation of power.