What a waste

Nepal’s lawmakers are more interested in development work than lawmaking.

The futile first session of the Parliament does not bode well for the next four and half years: the session of the lower House commenced on January 8 was prorogued from Friday midnight. It ended on a pessimistic note, without passing a single bill in its four-month-long sitting, even as winter session is considered a “bills session”. The House of Representatives has five basic duties—government formation, lawmaking, maintaining oversight of executive agencies, endorsing the budget, and conducting parliamentary hearings. Historically, Nepali legislatures have been masters at making and unmaking governments. They are also rather good at endorsing budgets and conducting parliamentary hearings. But on the “tedious task” of lawmaking, their primary duty, Nepali parliamentarians have over the years and decades shown far less enthusiasm.