KATHMANDU: It has been learnt that the ruling parties Nepali Congress and CPN-UML have inched closer towards narrowing down their differences and forging an understanding to constitute the Post-Earthquake Reconstruction Authority through an ordinance. The senior leaders of the two major parties held a separate meeting on Saturday evening to discuss how to constitute the purported body, which aims at reconstructing the physical infrastructures destroyed by the April 25 earthquake and its aftershocks, and narrow down their differences over it. In a four-party meeting held earlier today, the CPN-UML had objected to the NC proposal to bring in an ordinance to set up the Authority before the International Donors' Conference, scheduled for June 25. The second largest party had maintained that such a high-level body should be formed by the House, and not through an ordinance. After the evening meeting at the PM's official residence in Baluwatar, NC Vice-President Ram Chandra Paudel informed that the ruling parties were close to an agreement on forming the Authority through an ordinance, the state-owned Rastriya Samachar Samiti reported. Nepali Congress President and Prime Minsiter Sushil Koirala and Vice-President Paudel and Deputy Prime Minister, who is also the Acting Chairman of CPN-UML, Bamdev Gautam and his party's leader Shankar Pokharel took part in the meeting.

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