Kathmandu: Nepal's Constituent Assembly is set to begin the process of drafting a new constitution from November 16 that would institutionalise the nascent republican system in the country.

The process of writing the constitution will formally begin from Sunday, Chairman of the 601-member assembly, Subhash Nemwang, said today.

A Constituent Assembly meeting on Friday will endorse the regulation for drafting the constitution and also fix a time-table for it, he said.

If all the political parties work unitedly, the job of drafting the new constitution of the Himalyan nation, which abolished its 240-year-old monarchy earlier this year, will be completed within the deadline of May 27,2010,he said.

The government has been mandated for writing the new constitution in two years time after conducting the Constituent Assembly polls. Six months have already passed since the results of the April elections were announced and there is only one-and-a-half years left for drafting the statute.

The achievements made through the people s movement of 2006,which led to the end of the absolute rule of the king, could be institutionalised only if the task of drafting the statute is completed within the stipulated time-frame, Nemwang said.
Source : PTI