Sunday, February 4, 2024

International Committee of HoR to visit India

Kathmandu, Jan. 29

A delegation of International Relations and Tourism Committee (IRTC) of the House of Representatives is embarking on an official visit of India for 8-days from January 30 to February 6.

The 12-member delegation, including eight members of the committee and four staff of the Parliament Secretariat, is visiting the southern neighbour at the invitation of the chairman of the Standing Committee on External Affairs (SCEA) of Indian Federal Parliament. The External Affairs Committee includes 31 members – 21 from the lower house and 10 from the upper house.

Chairman of the IRTC, Raj Kishor Yadav, said that the visit is aimed at exchanging experience, knowledge and practice of the parliamentary system as well as discussing Nepal-India relations.

The Nepali parliamentary delegation will hold a meeting with the SCEA and Speaker of the lower house of Indian parliament – Lok Sabha – Om Birla. The delegation will discuss about the facilities at the parliament building of India and working styles of the committee including the organisation of meetings.

The visiting delegation is also scheduled to hold separate meeting with External Affairs Minister of India, Dr. S. Jaishankar, and Minister for Tourism, G Kishan Reddy.

"We will observe new parliament building of India and will see how it has been designed and managed so that we could find out better ways to manage our new parliament of building," said Yadav. 

"India is a large democracy. But is stable and there is parliamentary stability despite diverse demographics and political ideologies. There are several things that we need to learn," he added.

He said that students and patients going to India now have to pay fees as SAARC citizens while earlier it was same as for Indians. We will request lawmakers there to take this issue into considerations, said Yadav.

He maintained that economic and business issues will get priority in their deliberations.

Likewise, the Nepali delegation will request Indian Tourism Minister to keep Nepal in the priority list to send their government employees in vacation. About 50 million Indians go out of country as tourists, and government employees get 10 days casual leave in a calendar year for tourism activities.

Nepali delegation is also scheduled to meet the chief ministers and governors of Maharastra and Uttar Pradesh of India, hold interaction with Nepali diaspora in Mumbai and Delhi. It will make observational tours to Goa and Varanasi. It will also attend a programme at the Embassy of Nepal in New Delhi.

Yadav had already discussed the potential issues of deliberations with the former ambassadors and experts. Meanwhile, the delegation also called on Speaker Devraj Ghimire and Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda' on Monday and discussed about the visit. 

 Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 30 January 2024.     

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