KATHMANDU, JULY 13
The recently introduced bill related to citizenship has moved ahead of the House of Representatives.
Minister of Home Affairs Bal Krishna Khand presented the Nepal Citizenship (First Amendment) Bill, 2022.
Minister Khand presented the new bill after the two-thirds majority of the HoR disapproved of the protest notice registered by the major opposition party CPN-UML's Bhim Bahadur Rawal, Sher Bahadur Tamang and Nepal Workers and Peasants Party's Prem Suwal.
Rawal viewed that introducing a new bill related to citizenship by scrapping the old one was humiliating to the parliamentary State Affairs Committee. He said the old bill was deliberated in the State Affairs Committee for nearly three years and its report was also submitted.
Another parliamentarian Tamang disapproved the new bill, stating that it was against the spirit of the provision of issuing citizenship identity card through mother and father with distinct gender identity. Minister Khand responded to the protesting voices that the new bill was meant to constitutionally guarantee citizenship to those citizens without citizenship card.
He clarified that the old bill related to it was scrapped after the effort to enable favourable environment to formulate the laws to take forward the old bill on the basis of consensus failed.
The home minister said, "There are thousands of people who are deprived of citizenship identity card although their parents are citizens of Nepal. Lack of identity card is further depriving them of education and other state facilities. I appeal to all to help create an enabling environment to endorse the new bill and make headway in formulating new laws and implementing them."
He expressed confidence that the new bill would be taken forward in a more refined way after clause-wise deliberation on the same.
A version of this article appears in the print on July 14, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
