The government has formed an Eminent Persons Group that is mandated to look into Nepal-India ties in totality and reviewing all bilateral treaties with India ahead of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s visit to New Delhi in February.

The concept of forming EPG was materialised after Nepal and India agreed to review the bilateral ties in the changed context, and there were several discussions at political and senior government levels in the past, particularly during the visit of former prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal to New Delhi in 2008.

A Cabinet meeting on Wednesday decided to form such a panel whose members are Bhekh Bahadur Thapa, a former diplomat, Surya Nath Uphadhyay, a former top bureaucrat, Rajan Bhattarai, a CPN-UML parliamentarian, Kul Chandra Gautam,

former UN assistant secretary-general.

The government has already sanctioned $ 1 million to run the secretariat of EPG group as per an understanding with India during the third Nepal-India Joint Commission meeting held on July 25-27, 2014 in Kathmandu.

The two countries had agreed to form EPGs with four members on each side and set up secretariats.

According to the understanding, each EPG will have an eminent parliamentarian, a lawyer, an economist and a  civil society leader.

The mandate of the panel is to hold interactions with various stakeholders and make recommendations to the respective foreign secretaries of Nepal and India to look into the bilateral relations in totality. The panel will also make necessary recommendations to the respective countries about the measures to be taken to review or adjust or replace all bilateral treaties, including the 1950 Peace and Friendship. The panel will visit both sides for necessary consultations and study.

The panel will make some specific suggestions to settle the outstanding issues and other concerns of both sides and will give non-government and people’s level perspective to both sides.

The installation of the EPG was first proposed during the visit of former PM Baburam Bhattarai in October, 2011. Some rounds of discussions on preparing the terms of the references of the panel were also held.