House proceedings resume after two weeks

Kathmandu, June 13: The session of the House of Representatives that was obstructed for over two weeks resumed Friday.

The lower house session resumed after the ruling parties and the major opposition CPN (Maoist Centre) agreed to end the parliamentary impasse.

However, during the House proceedings, the lawmakers from the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) stood from the respective seats and hit the table as the protest on Friday as well.

Speaker Devraj Ghimire allowed Hitraj Pandey, Chief Whip of the major opposition party Maoist (Centre), to put forth his views. He reiterated the party’s demand for an impartial investigation into the alleged corruption and human trafficking in the visit visa procedures.

Pandey demanded policy, legal and structural reforms in the immigration office and visit visa procedures through the establishment of a probe committee with the guarantee that if anyone else found responsible for the scam would be brought to the justice.

“It is necessary for the government to move ahead by keeping the civic trust intact,” he reminded. He went on to say that, the oppositions agreed to end the parliamentary deadlock with the belief that the government would act in a way to reflect behaviour in parliament and practice in response to opposition’s concern.

He underlined the need of taking stringent legal actions to those- government employees, travel agencies, manpower agencies and airlines- involved in the visit visa scam.