CA Members and their Suggestion Collection spree

Since i am involved in research activities, I could not stop myself from writing about the suggestion collection process of our esteemed CA members. I know it is a noble idea to get people involved in the process of drafting a new constitution for the country. However, after what i got to hear yesterday from an acquaintance, i no more think the idea to be a great one.

The person who told me the details is working in an international organization promoting democracy in Nepal, and they have been closely working with the CA members in the entire process.She told me that concept paper for the constitution was to be ready by March 28, 2009 (which was yesterday), but the suggestions from all the VDCs have not yet been collected. The target was to collect suggestions from people from all the VDCs across Nepal. The process started in the first week of February, and as per calculation, each of the CA member had to collect suggestions from 4-5 VDCs per day. The questionnaire had 250 questions. Oh boy!250 questions is something....and the best part about the questionnaire was that they were not objective questions but subjective questions...so, how are the CA members going to code the questions and analyze the answers? From a research perspective, this is completely absurd and mere stupidity..

I was also told the amount that the CA members demanded for the entire process. They first started with 2 million Euro...but all of a sudden, their calculations hit a whopping 72 million Euro..But since this was a loooooot of money, the amount was settled somewhere near 20 million Euro, which still is a lot of money.

Our CA members for sure cannot analyze the data (they perhaps have better things to do like Constitution building), so they are thinking of asking Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) to help them do the analysis...I don't doubt CBS's expertise, but what can one do if the questionnaire is Incomprehensible to a data coding expert?

I am not a research expert, but a neophyte like me knows that this study is nothing but a serious waste of time and money.I wish our CA Members were more objective, and thought of concentrating their efforts in something better. The CA Members say that the suggestion collection process is seeing a lot of enthusiasm from people, but i doubt its relevance...Only after the research results are published that i can actually say "Good job Honorable members!"