People's representatives of Rurukshetra rural municipality have been protesting for about a month due to the dispute over the purchase of smart boards worth 35 lakhs without competition.

After buying and installing smart boards in 7 schools without competition from the budget of Lumbini State Government and Rs. 25 lakhs and Rs.

A complaint has been filed in the Authority Abuse Investigation Commission against the procurement process, and the service delivery of the municipality has been affected due to accusations between the chief administrative officer and the public representative.

The executive meeting on the 25th of Chaitra decided to split the budget of 3.5 lakh allocated to install smart boards in partnership with the state government and allow seven schools to purchase smart boards by themselves. But the executive's decision was sent directly to the school on June 3 without informing the school. After installing the smart board, the chief administrative officer Laxman Pandey called the principals of 7 schools and instructed them to complete the process and bring them for payment. According to the instructions, the schools have completed the process, but in the end, the payment has been stopped and the budget has also been frozen. 

The decision of the executive not to inform the school for 3 months, to install a smart board without the knowledge of the school against the decision, to make a fake quotation file after installation and make them seal and sign it and after the irregularity became public, the payment was stopped and 35 lakhs was frozen. 3 Chairman and Education Committee Coordinator Sheshnarayan Paudel said. There are 28 people including 12 executive members in the movement.  

The agitating people's representatives initially submitted a memorandum on 30th of June with a demand for an investigation saying that there was irregularity in the connection of the smart board and locked the office of the chairman and the chief administrative officer . But after 5 days of the lockdown, the lock was opened by deploying security personnel as per the decision of the District Security Committee. Instead of investigation, the people's representatives started a phased protest again saying that the lock was opened by mobilizing the police. "Until the irregularities are investigated, it has been decided to boycott the meeting called by the president and not to participate in any of the president's programs," said Vice President Meena Devi Gautam.

According to the agitating public representative, Netra Gyawali, a student of the local Ringeshwar Multipurpose Campus, wrote a status on Facebook saying that there was an irregularity by bringing a smart board without informing the school . Only after the same status, the chief administrative officer stopped the payment . After that, Gyawali was asked to delete the status by writing a letter to the police to file a case under cyber crime.

According to Paudel, the coordinator of the education committee, after the incident was publicized, the problem became complicated when the police administration asked the police administration to make a proper decision after the incident became public. The agitating party demands that an investigation should be carried out as to whose connivance is involved in this as no businessperson can arbitrarily add goods worth 35 lakhs without the assurance of the responsible official of the municipality. "Can a businessman take away goods worth 30/32 lakh just because I received a notice?" Paudel, the education committee coordinator, says, "Later, when their collusion was made public, the payment was stopped and the budget was frozen to avoid prosecution."

Municipality Chairman Gyawali says that he thinks that the implementation process may have gone after the decision of the executive body, but he said that when he came to know about this dispute only later, he called the representative of the supplier company and asked. "After I got the information, I said to form an inquiry committee on the 26th on whose assurance the businessmen brought the goods, but in a joint meeting of the executive, the education committee and the principals, they said that the discussion would be held in the education committee itself, and no decision could be reached," he said. According to Gyawali, the representative of the supplier company that installed the smart board said that Chief Administrative Officer Laxman Pandey called and informed him (suppliers) about the purchase of smart board but did not get any assurance.  

Administrative officer Pandey has admitted that it was wrong to buy in pieces instead of going to the tender process from the budget of 35 lakhs. "I could not participate in the discussion of the education committee on 22nd of Chaitra and the executive meeting on 25th. Even though I came late to the meeting, I signed as the secretary of the executive. If I had been in the discussion, I would not have allowed such a policy error to be made," he said. Officer Pandey was facilitating the payment of connected smartboards without the quotation process . Rohit Bhandari, principal of Reedy Secondary School, said that the chief administrative officer told him to complete the quotation process after installing the smart board in the school.

'Smartboard was installed in June without us knowing that the decision of the executive was made on the 25th of April. We thought it was connected by the municipality and said that it was fine, but later when the businessman brought the file, we were confused, he said, "When the municipality said that we cannot pay in this way, on June 11th, he said that the deadline is still there, open the quotation and complete the process. On the 11th, we removed it with 7 days' notice . After opening the quotation, the process was also completed, but later the payment was not made.

Municipal Chairman Yadu Gyawali said that since the quotations opened for seven schools were only quotations from limited businessmen, it looked like a collusion and the payment was stopped after receiving a letter from the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority.

Now, out of the 32 people's representatives of the municipality, 28 elected by UML have gone on strike, and the service delivery of the municipality has been affected. The UML Rurukshetra village committee, which supported the movement of the people's representatives, has also issued a statement and demanded an investigation into the process of installing 8 lakh 96 thousand irregulars. "In the quotation opened in the school, the minimum rate per board was 1 lakh 69 thousand, but in the quotation submitted by the high speed computer, 233 thousand per board was seen, so 64 thousand per board was found to be irregular," UML Rurukshetra Village Committee President Farsuram Gyawali said, "In this process, there is a commission game of 8 lakh 96 thousand." is .