The Himalayan Times
7 March 2019
Devolve power
to local levels
The
implementation of federal structure in Nepal has completed its one year with
much furore between the central and local level governments about the power
sharing in line with the constitution. The excitement of the local and
provincial governments for effectively running their organizations has been
dashed due to the unwillingness to hand over power by the central government to
them. Most of the senior leaders of all the major parties used to talk about federalism
before the promulgation of the constitution. It now seems the centre is not
serious about sharing and devolving its some to the sub-national governments
“Hand over power” (THT, March 5, Page 8) even though it has been explicitly
mentioned in the constitution.
One
of the visible and insensible acts of the federal government was to dissolve all
the district level offices responsible for looking after education, health
agriculture, forest, livestock, infrastructure and cooperatives instead of
handing them over to the provincial governments. Now, the government seems to
be thinking mulling over reviving these offices, which can be seen as another
attempt to undermine the role and responsibility of the provincial governments.
All
the provincial governments have been continuously raising their voices against
the unwillingness of federal government to hand over constitutional power to
them. There does not seem to be any reason for the federal government to be making
excuses of not handing power to the sub-national governments as per the
constitution if it firmly believes in the federal structure. If this situation
continues to persist, the federal concept will take a wrong course, damaging the
national image.
Rai Biren
Bangdel
Maharajgunj
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