WORRISOME SITUATION
The
Kathmandu Post
12 January
2018
WORRISOME SITUATION
Naming temporary
capitals of seven provinces has been a headache for the government. Demonstrations
by the local people demanding that their respective districts name the capitals
of their provinces are being carried out in several parts of the country. The
government has the constitutional responsibility of fixing temporary capitals until
the respective state assemblies name their capitals. However, the government
seems to be in dilemma when it to taking this step considering the sensitivity
and emotions attached with this issue.
Nonetheless,
the government does not seem to have other options besides naming the temporary
venues at the earliest to help move along the process of federalisation soon after
the completion of the national assembly which is scheduled on February 7, 2018 (“Govt to fix temp ‘meeting venues’, not
state HQs” January 10, Page 3). Earlier, the government was thinking of
inviting all the provincial parliament members to Kathmandu to take their oaths.
This was widely criticized as being against the spirit of federalism.
It seems
that the major parties did not do proper homework on several key issues
concerning federalism which is creating difficulties now. Allocating a budget
to run local and provincial governments, assigning human resources, naming
temporary capitals, appointing governors and identifying appropriate
infrastructures are some of the crucial things which need immediate action.
According to a recent article, the government is facing difficulty in securing
necessary budget to run the provincial governments. Looking at these worrisome
situations, it seems that the federal structure for a poor country could be
very expensive.
Rai Biren Bangdel
Maharjgunj
http://kathmandupost.ekantipur.com/printedition/news/2018-01-12/worrisome-situation.html
