Lawmaker Yogendra Mandal finds foibles and inactions rife among parliament partners

Kathmandu, Feb 8: Lawmaker Yogendra Mandal has expressed worry over problems facing community schools. He wondered why the stakeholders concerned failed to pay attention to ensure quality education.

"It does not take additional budget to create an atmosphere for school reform with quality education, but this sector is largely ignored," he viewed, adding that it has been a long the country restored democracy, while development is much awaited.

The annual policies and programmes the government brings are pleasing to hear, but the implementation aspect is poor. Corruption control must be a prerequisite to good governance. As long as the bigwigs involved in corruption are left scot-free, corruption control is a chimera, according to Mandal.

Talking to RSS Deputy Chief Reporter Narayan Neupane for the 'RSS dialogue with lawmakers', Mandal also expressed sheer dissatisfaction over the performance of parliament. "It is disappointing to say neither my expectation nor of people's are fulfilled in this period while a year elapsed since the present parliament came in operation," he regretted, adding that how people could make do with in the face of paucity and price hike. 

The parliamentarian development fund was run in the past. Those who ran the fund are now protesting it, he wondered.

According to him, people are not aware the development activities are carried out by the local levels. "I repeat the government and leaders are walking back track. The culture of not prioritizing law-making is being entrenched, which is quite disappointing," he underlined.

Lawmaker Mandal also criticized that there are numerous anomalies in parliament and parliament committees.  The committee members who do not contribute at all on any agenda are heard to have received a meeting allowance. It is a misuse of people's tax. He further said, "How can people's representatives accept allowance without working anything?" Even the media and civil society are mum on it, he blamed. 

"The views put forth by independent lawmakers like me at committee meetings go unheard and decisions not implemented. It causes inaction and apathy among lawmakers," Mandal shared the plight.

Other concerns and malaise he explained are- negligible spending of development budget- 10 percent of the total in seven months of the fiscal year; passing blame on bureaucrats, meting out injustice to civil servants with jail terms in the same case politicians are accused and implicated; gross non-implementation of promises made to people for drinking water, irrigation, chemical fertilizer, energy, tourism and employments; the crowd at ministries avoiding parliamentary committee meetings;  failure to utilize land and labor force in Tarai region.

The farmers in Tarai are hit hard with various problems such as irrigation. It is costly because of the electricity shortage. Erosion of quality in school is an equally pressing issue, he underlined. 

Lawmaker Mandal prefers direct election to a proportional system.  He lambasts the luxurious life of political leaders- collecting and stashing money, riding cars, building houses in cities- which, he argues, is one of the causes of impoverishing the country and its people.

The independent lawmaker Mandal is a permanent resident of Dhanpal at Constituency no-5 of Morang district. He had been involved in social service for a long before getting elected to the HoR member. (RSS)