A joint meeting of the Special Committee and top leaders of the three major political parties on Wednesday endorsed a plan of action to this effect, pending decisions on four major issues that the parties still need to iron out. [break]
The unresolved issues are structure of the proposed directorate under the Nepal Army, determination of ranks as per the seven-point agreement of last November, bridging courses and training, and the selection committee.
On that historic day, those combatants aspiring to be integrated will head for eight barracks of the Nepal Army, handing over their arms containers to the national army, according to the plan of action.
The Nepal Army will then hold selections of the aspiring combatants at eight venues. While the officer-level selections -- above the rank of second lieutenant --will be held at Samsher Dal Battalion in Hetauda, the selection for junior ranks will take place in seven other places.
As over 9,000 Maoist combatants have chosen the integration option, some 3,000 more that the 6,500 quota for integration, the Special Committee has decided to offer the combatants the voluntary retirement option, hoping that the number will become manageable after the voluntary retirement.
As per the plan of action distributed by the Prime Minister´s office, the Special Committee secretariat is sending its survey team to all the 13 cantonments to offer the voluntary retirement option to the combatants and give out paychecks to retiring ex-Maoist fighters. The voluntary retirement process is starting from coming Sunday and will be completed by next Thursday. In the meantime, the rehabilitation work will also be initiated.
The parties endorsed the plan of action for integration despite differences over key issues relating to integration, in the light of their commitment to vacate the cantonments by next Thursday, according to Special Committee members.
"We did not even touch upon the structure of the directorate on Wednesday. We continue to have differences over the selection committee, the standard norms and the bridge course," said the member, seeking anonymity.
According to the member, the Maoists have demanded that there should be a representative on the selection committee designated by the Special Committee while the NC and the CPN-UML have argued that such a committee should be in line with the provisions in existing army law and regulations. Similarly, the Maoists have argued that the bridge course should be short while the NC and CPN-UML have argued that it should be a full-fledged one.
"We will take decisions on Sunday on some issues like rank harmonization and training duration," said Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, emerging out of the meeting held at Singha Durbar.