Budget session of Federal Parliament concludes

Published On: September 19, 2019 09:20 PM NPT By: Kamal Subedi | @Inspiredkamal

KATHMANDU, Sept 19: The budget session of the House of Representatives was concluded on Thursday.

At the third meeting of HoR, Speaker Krishna Bahadur Mahara read out the letter related to the conclusion of the house session received from the Office of President. According to the letter, the session automatically concludes to be effective from Thursday midnight.

President Bidhya Devi Bhandari prorogued the session based on the recommendation of the Council of the Ministers on September 17 by exercising her right as stated in the Sub-article 2 of Article 93 of the constitution.

A total of 65 meetings were held in this session, also known as the fourth session, which began on April 29. Although the House ran for 144 days, meetings were for only 60 days. During the whole period, both the Houses of the Federal Parliament met only twice. The session had an intense discussion over the policies and programs of the government followed by the fiscal year budget annoucement. It also passed the budget for the current fiscal year.

During the session, 18 bills were endorsed. Of the 17 registered bills, seven were passed by both the Upper and Lower House while five others have yet to be tabled and four are under discussion in respective parliamentary committees.

At the final meeting of the session, Minister of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Bhanu Bhakta Dhakal, on behalf of the government, gave answers to the oral questions raised by the concerned parliamentarians related to various ministries including Office of Prime Minister and Council of Ministers; Ministry for Defence; Ministry for Health and Population; Ministry of Home Affairs; Ministry Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation and among others.

Similarly, Ministers for Labour, Employment and Social Security Gokarna Bista; Agriculture and Livestock Development Chakrapani Khanal and Land Management and Poverty Alleviation Padma Kumari Aryal also responded to the queries by the concerned lawmakers.

Speaker Mahara read out the names of the lawmakers who remained absent for ten consecutive meetings in the session.