Trust created by the local level

The current local levels are more empowered than the local bodies of the unitary state because they are governments in their own right. Polls after the implementation of federalism have also shown that among the three levels of government, people's trust is more in the local level.

The bank has reached the center of all municipalities except Saipal Rural Municipality of Bajhang. The economic and political development of the rural areas has started to show activity. During the conflict, many citizens were displaced from their villages and started living in cities. Although it is a small part, it has now returned to the village, some opportunities have been created in the village. Work has been done in areas like water supply, road infrastructure, agriculture, health, education, etc.

Whether by providing facilities and concessions in the modernization of agriculture or by promoting commercial farming, the municipalities have done exemplary work. They have implemented the rule that the land cannot be kept idle. The role of the local level in solving the corruption, superstition, inconsistency and distortion existing in the society is more remarkable. Efforts and achievements in reviving original heritage, tradition and culture are commendable. There are many examples of public schools becoming better after the local level.

The first term of the local level went to learning and building structures. During this period, the work was affected by the terror of Covid-19 and the lockdown brought by it. However, in order to cope with such an adverse situation, the local level has well established its capacity by mobilizing the available resources and means.

Every municipality is different in terms of geography, population, internal income, budget volume. However, the Local Government Act and other policies and laws have brought everyone together. On the one hand, the internal income of metropolitan cities like Kathmandu and Lalitpur is high, but on the other hand, there is no space left to spend on infrastructure like roads, drains, and bridges. Even if there are, since it is a city of the federal capital, the state and federal governments allocate the budget for such infrastructure works and implement them. We can say that we do not need conditional and complementary programs from the municipalities, provinces and unions with such resources. However, the condition of the rest of the municipality is very weak. Municipalities with low internal income have to rely only on equalization and conditional grants. Therefore, he has only been able to partially address the broad expectations of the people. In some municipalities, there is no policy and unit for building construction maps, waste management, etc.

Local government is the government closest to the people. There are many challenges to meet all the expectations of the people. Budget limits, lack of manpower and experts have affected the work done by the local level. The position determination made by high-ranking people with centralized thinking seems to be unfair to the local level. Access of governance and administration to the ward level is a feature of Nepali federalism. But since there is no secretary not only in the remote areas but also in the wards of the municipalities that are called accessible, the technical staff of health or agriculture have to perform the responsibility of the secretary. Although there are posts of accountants, engineers, agricultural technicians and computer operators in many wards, they are vacant.

Even now, in about 200 out of 753 municipalities, the post of chief administrative officer has been vacant and interim arrangements have been made, while in some of them, the work has stopped. Not having a chief administrative officer means not only not having an employee, but the entire staff at the local level being without leadership. The controversy over which administrative officer should be placed in the federal civil service, state civil service or local civil service is now intense.

In practice so far, this post was under the federal civil service and along with relegation, performance evaluation, transfer, and promotion were also done through the union. In order to make the coordination and relationship with the union easy and lively, this position held under the union is more responsible to the union government, so the opinion that it should be kept in the state or local civil service has been strengthened. In the Local Service (Organization and Operation) Act passed by Bagmati and Gandaki provinces, the chief administrative officer has been placed under the province.

There is very little training opportunity for municipal employees. Apart from that, there is no other opportunity for him to work in rural areas. Therefore, either the post is vacant or they live in the city and go back and forth to the rural municipality, but they are rarely found in the municipality. So it affects what he does. The common understanding that only the construction of physical infrastructure is development is the main problem of Nepali development process. Voters demand physical infrastructure and candidates win elections with the same assurance. On the other hand, because of the five-year election cycle, people's representatives are interested and invested in the development of that period.

Investment in physical infrastructure is directly visible. More and more citizens are always looking at structures like View Tower and Swagat Dwar. Therefore, it can be assumed that municipalities have a special interest in such unproductive areas. Efforts made to improve the educational quality of schools may not be visible within five years. But by that time, the people's representatives will have reached somewhere. Therefore, due to the five-year cycle of electoral politics and the people's representatives guided by it, the municipality's investment has fallen into unproductive areas. If there was a civil society in every municipality that could understand the work of election-oriented people's representatives, such investment would be under some control.

'Dojre Vikas' and 'Asare Vikas' are distortions of the municipality. With the assumption that roads are development, they have caused the danger of landslides and soil erosion due to the indiscriminate digging of ditches and ditches. Poor quality roads have increased the risk of accidents. The construction work will be started only at the end of the financial year and since that time falls during the peak rainy season, the quality of such infrastructure will decrease and the goods will be wasted. This happened because the process for implementing the budget was started only after the winter. This distortion is also seen in the physical construction done by the union and the state. Therefore, it is necessary to change the structure of the financial year and complete the work before the start of rain or rain.

The Local Government Operation Act basically guides the functioning of the local government. In Schedule 8 of the Constitution, there are 22 subjects of individual rights at the local level, while the list of common rights of all three governments is in Schedule 9. In those areas, the local level can enact more laws and carry out work. Local government was very active in lawmaking in the early years. He is not interested in making laws other than the most necessary laws.

First of all, the municipality lacks skilled human resources for law making. Secondly, it can be assumed that this is because of the fear that the laws they make will fail in judicial and administrative tests. This happened because the earlier laws were not implemented. Many municipalities passed and tried to implement the Education Act. Accordingly, the formation of the management committee was also started. But when there was a case about this, the court canceled the activities of the local level based on the Education Act 2028, so they did not have that enthusiasm. As there is still no Union Civil Act, Education Act, etc., the functioning of the local level has been affected.

Union and state non-cooperation

The constitution assumes that the three levels of government will be based on the principles of coordination, cooperation and coexistence. But it is natural that there are some problems between these three governments that came into existence after the unitary government system with only one government at the center. In particular, the union has been inconsistent in the decentralization and transfer of rights. The indifference of the Union in making the necessary laws is also unnatural. This has weakened the performance of the local level.

It is another irony that the union and the state come to the local level by allocating the budget to the small projects that are allocated by the local level. On the other hand, the provincial government has set up structures at the district level, such as agricultural knowledge centers, veterinary hospitals and veterinary service centers, and social development offices, which have the character of working at the local level, to tease the local level. The local level has taken these offices as competing organizations, which were established by violating the rights.

In financial grants, even though the union and state should increase the amount of equalization grant and decrease the amount of conditional grant, there is no such practice. The volume of financial equalization had to be increased as the local level should be empowered to make the program effective by identifying local needs.

Weak Accountability System

Although it seems that the local government basically tries to do its work well, the aspect of accountability seems to be weak. There is a provision that every ward and municipality should keep a citizen's charter about the functioning of the local government. Even if that is done, most of the citizens' charters appear in a state where the letters are not visible to the citizens. A compelling indication that the

should be held in public is sufficient. Mechanisms and processes such as social audit, complaint hearing officer, information officer, complaint box, expenditure publicization are not noticed by most of the local level. Apart from that, even though the website of every municipality is an excellent platform for providing information content to the citizens, it only carries stale and meaningless information. Accountability would definitely increase if they could be utilized.

is another bitter reality of increased corruption at the local level. However, corruption is not only happening now and it is not happening only at the local level. Earlier, the budget expenditure used to be more from the upper level and corruption was also more common there. Currently, corruption has also increased along with the amount of budget coming to the local level. Apart from that, there are some specific reasons for economic deviation. Such problems can be solved by making mechanisms like the Office of the Auditor General, Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority, National Vigilance Center more responsible and efficient. Although the district coordination committee monitors the activities of the local level, its role is limited as it does not have the authority to take action. It is too late to either abolish the roleless district coordination committee, which is considered to be the local government, or make it active by giving it responsibility.

The local level has not only provided facilities to the people through service delivery, but they are also confirming the legitimacy of the federal government system at the same time. Because of the close access, people's hopes and trust are high, so the local government has many responsibilities. If the local level can proceed as a mature government while maintaining good governance and transparency, it is certain that the foundation of Nepali federalism will be strengthened.

There is an understanding in the union and the state that giving authority to the local level will end everything. But the essence of the constitution is not like that. It can only work effectively if the local government is empowered more. If the ward level is given more resources and authority and made responsible, federalism would be more meaningful.

(Not only politics, but industry, business, agriculture, education, health, tourism, banking, cinema, literature, there is disappointment everywhere now. The country cannot bear the weight of this disappointment for a long time. To promote lively faith, Kantipur has started a series of ideas- (The 'starting point' where different experts will write proposals for reform, continuously every day.)