The results of the peaceful voting in all 165 constituencies across the country on Thursday are coming in rapidly. The results are in the final stages. However, the building where the elected members of parliament will hold their meetings is still not decided. Although the parliament building is under construction inside Singha Durbar, the work has not been completed.

According to the Election Commission, the results of the proportional representation will also be out by Falgun. After that, a building is needed to administer the oath to the 275 members of parliament. A session will have to be called immediately and the meeting will be held. Ekram Giri, spokesperson and joint secretary of the Federal Parliament Secretariat, says that if the building inside Singha Durbar is not ready, there will be no place to hold the meeting. He informed that an alternative has not been sought yet.

‘Now the House of Representatives needs a meeting room, at least a building for office bearers, party offices, and at least for employees directly involved in conducting meetings,’ he said. ‘So far, the building construction agency has been assuring us, but the pace of work does not seem to be as expected.’

He said that the Federal Parliament Secretariat is confident that the Ministry of Urban Development will build the building and hand it over in the first week of Chaitra. For this reason, Giri says that no alternative has been considered. ‘But ironically, there is no hall to hold the oath of office in one place for the MPs. There is a legal provision that a convention must be called and a meeting held within 30 days of the date of the final vote result,’ he said. ‘The date of the public announcement of the final vote result by the Election Commission will be official.’

Joint Secretary Giri says that the issue of conducting the House of Representatives is not like holding a general meeting. ‘Where will the seating arrangements be made based on the party’s victory? Where will the audience be placed? Where will the government employees be placed? Where will the media be placed? The meeting should be held only after managing all these.' He said that the building should be ready so that the overall work can be done in the assembly hall.

'It takes us 7 to 10 days to prepare how to conduct the parliament meeting, we are under a lot of time pressure now,' he said, 'How can we distrust the government's ability to work? But we have been constantly warning to complete the building work quickly right after Dashain.'

The Chairman of the National Assembly and the Speaker of the House of Representatives had also inspected this building repeatedly and pressured it to be completed quickly. The President and the Prime Minister had inspected it from time to time and directed to complete the work quickly, but the work was not completed. 'We have coordinated with the Secretariat, we have drawn as much attention as necessary, and we are also requesting to work quickly,' Giri said, 'Although all the buildings are not completed, there is a matter of giving the assembly hall of the House of Representatives and six other buildings. But so far, none of the buildings are completely ready. There is still a little time left, so it seems that we will have to work day and night.’

The contract was awarded on 16 Asho 2076 to complete the construction of the parliament building by 16 Asho 2079. The construction contract was awarded to Tundi-Sek JV to be completed at a cost of 5.67 billion 27 million rupees. At that time, the aim was to hold the meeting of the House of Representatives, which would be formed from the 2079 elections, in the new building. But even when the elections were over in Falgun 2082, the building was not ready.

After the work was not completed within the initial deadline, the deadline was extended for the first time until 30 Chaitra 2079. The deadline was extended for the second time until 19 Asho 2080, the third time until 19 Chaitra 2080, the fourth time until 18 Chaitra 2081 and the fifth time until 16 Puush 2082, but preparations are being made to extend the deadline again for a short time after the work was not completed.

After the construction of the building was not completed, parliamentary committees had also been monitoring the construction from time to time and urging it to continue. On Tuesday, a team including General Secretary of the Federal Parliament Secretariat Padma Prasad Pandey and government Chief Secretary Suman Raj Aryal inspected the under-construction parliament building.

Roshan Shrestha, head of the Special Building Construction Project under the Ministry of Urban Development, said that work has not stopped even on Holi and election days as the new parliament building is needed urgently. “So far, 94 percent of the work has been completed, and work is being done to accommodate the new parliament,” he said. “The main building and party offices are being prepared.” He said that slope work is underway in the center lobby and parking area.

“We had planned to finish it by mid-Falgun, but we couldn’t do it no matter how hard we tried,” Shrestha said. “Now, we are planning to finish it by the first week of Chaitra. We made arrangements for workers to stay inside even on election day.” He claims that despite working at a fast pace, progress has not been as expected. He says that now, only the necessary buildings will be provided and the entire work will take about two months to complete. He informed that the contract agreement has expired and a decision to extend it will be taken only after looking at the progress of the work.

The parliament building is being constructed on an area of ​​156 ropanis in the Singha Durbar complex. The new building is up to five floors. The House of Representatives, the National Assembly Building, the Central Lobby, the Office Building of the Very Distinguished Persons, the Library and the Museum are being prepared there. The parliamentary party office building, the parliamentary committee building, the Parliament Secretariat Building, the Chamena Grih, the Press and Printing Building have been built separately. Infrastructure is being prepared to park 476 four-wheelers and 800 two-wheelers. A building to house security personnel has also been constructed.

A separate contract for ‘roofing’ was taken by Chainlink Engineering Company for Rs 37.9 million. According to the contract signed on 27 Falgun 2080, the work has not been completed even though the deadline was till mid-Magh. The responsibility for ‘interior’ was taken by KC-Shyamsundar-Baniya JV. The contract amount is 2.34 billion 5.4 million rupees. The agreement was signed on 17 Ashad 2080 to complete the work by Ashad 2081. Later, the time was extended to 16 Chaitra 2081, but after the work was not completed, the deadline was extended again to 16 Poush 2082.

Now, preparations are underway to extend the deadline until Baisakh 2083. The agreement with the Birendra International Conference Center in New Baneshwor, where the parliament was previously held, has ended.

The parliament secretariat did not renew the agreement with the center after protesters vandalized and set fire to it on 24 Bhadra. The work on the National Assembly Hall is not currently a priority. Currently, the National Assembly is operating in the old hall of the Agriculture Committee on the Singha Durbar premises. The 275-member House of Representatives and the 59-member National Assembly should be operated in separate halls. Currently, only the building to operate the House of Representatives is being prepared.

Urban Development Minister Kumar Ingnam said that despite all efforts, the work could not be completed by Falgun. "No matter how much we do, it will not be completed this month. The work is still ongoing, but we will prepare the building for the parliament meeting immediately," he said. "Currently, the work on the center lobby is underway, the work on the false ceiling in the House of Representatives hall is ongoing. This work will be completed in three/four days. It has been difficult to complete the work because it is at a high height."