KATHMANDU- A cabinet meeting on Thursday has announced 72 new municipalities which included 41 declared earlier but unimplemented.

With this announcement, the number of municipalities all over the country has reached to 130.

However, the announcement of four proposed municipalities –Manthali of Ramechhap, Shankharapur of Kathmandu, Karya Binayak and Champapur of Lalitpur districts–could not take place due to criterion disputes.

The government has formed a Municipal Area Allocation and Recommendation Committee under the coordination of Principal Keshav Nanda Giri to settle the disputes and recommend the VDCs that fulfill the infrastructural criteria to be a municipality.

The members of the committee include Joint- Secretary at the Ministry that looks after the municipality division, Joint- Secretary at Urban Development Ministry, deputy general director at Department of Survey, Chairman of the municipality association and vice secretary and member secretary of the Ministry’s municipality division.

The committee has been given one month time to submit its recommendation.

KATHMANDU: Nepal’s incumbent technocrat cabinet on Tuesday failed to pave way for the appointment of chiefs to vacant constitutional organs.

Along with that the Khilaraj led interim government’s cabinet also failed to fix a date for holding constituent assembly elections., though the meeting was expected to take both decisions today.

As per the recent amendment made in the constitutions, the President will appoint chiefs and members to vacant constitutional organs as per the recommendations of the interim cabinet.

Minister for Information and Communications Madhav Dhungel informed that a date for the CA elections will be decided only after appointments to constitutional organs is finalized.

While not stating that as to till when the government will fulfill the vacant constitutional positions, Dhungel assured that the government is committed to hold CA elections on time by making appointments to Election Commission and other constitutional organs at the earliest.

However in today’s meeting, Chairman of the Interim electoral cabinet, Khilaraj Regmi directed his technocrat ministers for not taking double-privileges as facilitated by their twin ministerial portfolios.

Along with that the cabinet has decided to implement the cabinet’s code of conduct sternly. Adding to it the cabinet has decided to post all its executed and to-be-executed work on respective ministry’s website within 24 hours.

The meeting, first after the formation of the cabinet, has appointed Minister Dhungel as its spokesperson.

KATHMANDU: Nearly six years after signing the Comprehensive Peace Accord (CPA) and entering into mainstream politics, Nepal’s former rebellion party- UCPN Maoist- has accepted using children during the armed insurgency.

Responding to a writ petition filed at the Supreme Court, Prime Minister and Vice Chairman of the party Dr Baburam Bhattarai accepted using child soldiers to fight with the state force, Nepali daily newspaper Nepali Samacharpatra reported on Sunday.

The writ petition was filed at the court against the government’s decision to provide Rs 2 lakhs to each of the child soldiers and late PLAs disqualified by UNMIN during its initial verification process.

In its written response, the PM has accepted of recruiting child soldiers during the armed insurgency and argued that it was agreed to pay these under-age militia and other disqualified combatants an amount of Rs 2 lakhs.

During the initial week of October, the government had decided to pay off the amount to these combatants. However the decision was challenged by the opposition stating that it was against the CPA.

” Of the 4 thousand and 8 Maoist PLAs disqualified by UNMIN on the basis of underage and of their recruitment date, the government has decided to pay Rs 2 lakhs to each of the combatants disqualified for being under age. The government hopes that the amount will help these ex-combatants to rehabilitate in the society,” the newspaper quoted the PM as stating in the written reply to the court.