Kathmandu, Aug. 18 -- The Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture, Cooperative and Natural Resources has said that most of the concerns raised by community forest user groups and their promoters have been addressed in the new Forest Bill, which had drawn criticism for trying to curtail the rights of the community managed forests.

The parliamentary committee chairperson Purna Kumari Subedi told the Post that the bill was passed by the committee after addressing the issues that were earlier criticised by community forestry user groups.

"We have had several rounds of discussions before passing the bill. The overall bill-after the changes-looks encouraging to community forest users," said Subedi. "The full report on the Forest Bill will be p...