Kathmandu, March 25: Nepal’s federal parliament will hold its next session at Singha Durbar after a gap of 17 years, marking a return to the historic administrative complex where the country’s parliamentary practice first began.
The session will take place in the new parliament building under construction inside the Singha Durbar premises. The oath ceremony for the 275 newly elected members of the House of Representatives has been set for March 25 at 2 pm in the same complex.
Parliament had been meeting outside Singha Durbar since May 2008 after the election of the 601-member Constituent Assembly. The old parliament building at Singha Durbar had become too small for the large assembly, forcing the legislature to shift to the International Convention Centre in New Baneshwar.
Before the Constituent Assembly era, parliamentary meetings had traditionally taken place at the gallery hall inside Singha Durbar. Nepal’s parliamentary history began from that building in 1959.
The International Convention Centre served as the parliament venue for nearly 17 years. The Federal Parliament Secretariat had signed an agreement in May 2008 with the Convention Centre Development Committee, paying an annual rent of Rs 56 million along with staff deployment costs. The rent increased by 10 percent each year and had reached about Rs 165 million annually by last October.
The arrangement ended after a fire during the Gen Z protests on September 9 and 10 destroyed the convention centre building in Baneshwar. After the incident, the parliament secretariat cancelled the agreement with the development committee through a public notice last October.
Meanwhile, meetings of the National Assembly had already been taking place at Singha Durbar since January 17 in a temporary hall used by the Agriculture Committee.
Officials say the new parliament building is not fully complete, so the oath ceremony and early meetings will take place in a multipurpose hall inside the complex. Federal Parliament Secretariat spokesperson Eakram Giri said the alternative hall has been prepared for the swearing in and initial sessions.
Preparations for the first House meeting began after the Election Commission published the final election results. President Ram Chandra Paudel is scheduled to administer the oath to the senior most lawmaker, Arjun Narasingha KC, at the President’s Office on Wednesday. KC will then administer the oath to all newly elected lawmakers on March 25.
Under Article 93 of the Constitution, the president must call a session of the federal parliament within 30 days of the announcement of final election results.
Construction of the new parliament complex at Putali Bagaincha inside Singha Durbar began on September 18, 2019. Officials from the Department of Urban Development and Building Construction say most construction work is complete, though some technical work remains.
The project is expected to cost around Rs 5.5 to 6 billion for civil construction, with another Rs 2.34 billion allocated for interior work. Spread across more than 151 ropanis of land, the complex will house the buildings of both the House of Representatives and the National Assembly, along with offices, meeting rooms, and a parliamentary library once fully completed.
People’s News Monitoring Service
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