E-Kantipur

KATHMANDU, DEC 12 -

In its first meeting after the regrouping process, the prime minister-led Special Committee on Sunday directed its Secretariat to table an operational plan with a timeline to be enforced on the combatants opting for integration and voluntary retirement. The secretariat has been asked to table the plan on December 16.

Once the plan gets the committee’s approval, those opting for voluntary retirement will return to their communities and those opting for integration will report to the Nepal Army. The secretariat plans to recommend, among other things, making payments to combatants opting for voluntary retirement through individual bank accounts and transport facilities and allowances for those returning to their villages.

The secretariat will also suggest ways to select 6,500 combatants from the 9,690 willing to join the Army, according to Finance Minister Barsha Man Pun.

The Army assumes that it will take around three months to screen the 9,690 combatants and take decisions on the rank of those eligible. The selection process will be done on an individual basis and combatants must meet all physical criteria apart from the three-year concession in age, one-level concession in education and flexibility in marital status. They should also go through interviews and written examinations prior to the at least three-month-long bridging training.

The Secretariat presented its initial regrouping reports and said 16,964 of the 19,602 combatants verified by Unmin in 2007 had participated in the process. Final statistics are yet to come as officials are yet to resolve the duplication of entries that occurred during the regrouping process. According to preliminary information handed over to members of the cross-party committee, 9,690 combatants have opted for integration, 7,286 voluntary retirement and six opted for the rehabilitation package.

Secretariat coordinator Balananda Sharma said the number of combatants participating in the regrouping process would go up to 17,000 by the time the process concludes.  The committee is planning to conduct the regrouping process of the disabled and ill combatants, who were absent in the recent survey, on Wednesday and Thursday. Surveyors will visit hospitals in Kathmandu where the combatants are undergoing treatment. It is learnt that one blind combatant and a pregnant combatant are now undergoing treatment at Janamaitri Hospital and Bir Hospital respectively.

Meanwhile, the Secretariat has said that the government should take a formal decision on setting up a new directorate in the Nepal Army in order to take forward the integration process. The Army regulation has to be amended and a new organogram regarding the non-combat directorate should be approved by the Cabinet. In Sunday’s meeting, Prime Minister Babu Ram Bhattarai said the government will soon move a proposal on amending the military regulation and will take a decision on expanding the organisational structure of the Army.

Posted on: 2011-12-12 08:48

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