Kathmandu. Kathmandu: The House of Representatives (HoR) today passed the ‘Bill 2080 BS’ to provide for the formation, operation and conditions of service of the Federal Civil Service, which has been pending for nearly 10 years.

Minister for Federal Affairs and General Administration Raj Kumar Gupta presented the bill in the meeting of the House of Representatives on Sunday. After the discussion, the meeting passed the proposal to pass the bill with a majority.

Minister Gupta replied to the questions raised in the House before the bill was passed. On the occasion, he informed that the Civil Service Bill has been brought in accordance with Article 285 of the Constitution of Nepal 2072 BS. He said it would be easier to implement administrative federalism once the bill is converted into an Act.

Lawmakers AmanLal Modi, Janardan Sharma, Kantika Sejuwal, Prakash Jwala, Ranju Kumari Jha, Dr Amresh Kumar Singh, Chandra Kanta Bhandari, Ram Krishna Yadav, Jwala Kumari Sah, Madhav Sapkota and Lekhnath Dahal expressed their views on various provisions made in the bill.

Similarly, Sher Bahadur Kunwar, Mahendra Bahadur Shahi, Basudev Ghimire, Thakur Prasad Gaire, Prem Suwal, Rekha Sharma, Ram Prakash Chaudhary, Narayani Sharma, Lilanath Shrestha, Chitra Bahadur KC, Deepa Sharma and Prabhu Sah also participated in the discussion.

During the discussion, the lawmakers thanked and congratulated Minister Gupta for presenting the bill to the House of Representatives unanimously by the State Affairs and Good Governance Committee incorporating issues of long-term importance by strengthening the bill which has been pending for the last nine to ten years. They believe that the federal civil service bill will be a policy departure in the implementation of federalism in the country.

The bill, which was passed by the House of Representatives, now goes to the National Assembly. After the approval of the National Assembly, it will come back to the House of Representatives and will come into force as an Act after speaker Devraj Ghimire and President Ram Chandra Poudel authenticates it.

Minister Gupta’s one-point campaign

In the absence of the Civil Service Act, the effective implementation of federalism could not take place in the country. Minister for Federal Affairs and General Administration Raj Kumar Gupta, who took over as minister, pledged to pass the bill at any cost during his tenure. In the meantime, he had been continuously taking initiatives and strong will for the development of the bill to fulfill his commitment.

Minister Gupta said that he has managed the time by postponing many works of the ministry to finalize this bill necessary for administrative restructuring along with the restructuring of the state and for the effective implementation of federalism. “My main objective was to convert the Civil Service Bill into an Act. For this, I managed my time by keeping myself and many other employees of the ministry in abeyance,” said Minister Gupta, adding, “This will not only show the work of the ministry led by me but also disrupt the country’s system. ’

According to Minister Gupta, 130 lawmakers from 124 registered groups registered 1,583 amendment proposals on the bill which has 13 chapters and 147 clauses. The State Affairs and Good Governance Committee had formed a sub-committee and held extensive discussions on the proposal. During the meeting, suggestions were received after extensive discussions with administration experts, various constitutional commissions including the Public Service Commission, civil servants trade unions, persons and personalities contributing to the administrative sector, former administrators, legal experts, civil servants and state governments and various stakeholders.

After the discussion, the 73rd meeting of the committee held on May 28 had unanimously passed the bill. Although the bill was scheduled to be tabled in the House of Representatives meeting scheduled for May 15, opposition parties including CPN (Maoist), Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSSP) and Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) could not move ahead due to obstruction in parliament. After a long exercise, the Federal Civil Service Bill with a new dimension was presented in the House of Representatives on June 15.

Even after the bill was tabled in parliament, the top officials of the civil servants had been putting high pressure on the government, including Minister Gupta, to remove the cooling-off period. In the meantime, Minister Gupta had to answer many questions in Parliament. In the meantime, he had said with a firm stance, “The cooling period or any other arrangement cannot be revised, the comma (comma) and full stop (full stop) will not change.” ’

Unfazed by many pressures and hassles, he concluded his rivalry. This has made him the historic Minister of Federal Affairs and General Administration. The success of passing a big and important bill after the constitution has also increased confidence in his political abilities.