However, the survey compiled by the ministry and UN agencies to find out what the discharged fighters want has run into rough weather with the PLA rejecting them.

When the team of government and UN officials talked with PLA combatants in the Shaktikhor cantonment in Nawalparasi district Friday, the fighters rejected the suggestions that they be provided higher education or training to work in sectors related to agriculture and industries.

Instead, they are asking for employment in the security sector.

'That's not unnatural,' said Janardan Sharma Prabhakar, Maoist lawmaker and former PLA deputy commander.

'They took part in a 10-year war,' Prabhakar, a former peace and reconstruction minister, told IANS.

'When the war was over, they stayed in cantonments for three years. They have military training and temperament and should be utilised accordingly.'

However, Prabhakar said his party considered the government's move to initiate the discharge as positive and was confident in the ensuing months, an acceptable solution would be found.

The government has said 4,008 people who were disqualified during a headcount by the UN would be discharged by Nov 2.

The prime minister, who returned to Kathmandu Saturday from the 15th Non-Aligned Movement summit in Egypt, told journalists at the airport that the future of the remaining 19,000 PLA combatants would be addressed soon.

When the Maoists ended their insurgency in 2006, the peace pact they signed with the government pledged to accommodate the PLA into the army.

But the clause has become controversial.

First, it was opposed by the Nepal Army chief, Gen Rookmangud Katawal. Then Prachanda himself admitted he had inflated the PLA's strength before the UN.