Lalitpur, August 5 In a bid to end the controversy once and for all by taking in the officials from the agitating group, the extraordinary congress of the Nepal Olympic Committee today amended its statute to expand the Executive Committee to 19 from the existing 17 members. Nepali sports has been plagued by the existence of two parallel committees for more than a decade after the government reinstated the Rukma Shumsher Rana-led body — which was registered at the District Administrative Office — in 2008, one year after the general assembly elected Dhruba Bahadur Pradhan as the president of the NOC, which was internationally recognized and affiliated to the National Sports Council. The two parties have been fighting for superiority since then, although the Rana-led panel was never recognised by the International Olympic Committee. Current NOC President, Jeevan Ram Shrestha said both the parties now wanted to end the row and take Olympic Movement to a greater height together. “We had a couple of meetings and reached to certain agreements to end the controversy once and for all,” said Shrestha. “We endorsed the decisions from the extra ordinary congress today and are hoping to get the approval from IOC. If we receive the IOC approval, we will go into the elections as per the new statute and we believe it will end the row for ever,” he added. As per the new decision, the NOC will have a 19-member Executive Committee. The extra ordinary congress agreed to add one vice-president to the previous quota of four and add three secretaries apart from reducing the number of members to seven from nine. The new NOC Executive Committee will have one each president, general secretary, deputy general secretary and treasurer along with five vice-presidents and seven members, if approved by the IOC. The congress also agreed to honour former presidents as honorary presidents and add two each honorary vice-presidents and members in the executive committee. The NOC previously had the provision of having immediate past president as the honorary president. The NOC meeting also decided to organise the elective general assembly on September 6. Among other decisions, the congress also accepted the membership of Nepal Golf Association taking the membership number to 27.