Local law-making sluggish

BANKE, Sept 17: ‘Singha Durbar comes closer to people’s doorsteps’ was so far the most saleable slogan during the last local elections. The general citizens were optimistic enough with their belief that the people’s power would truly devolve into villages from Singha Durbar – the country’s central administrative hub of governance. However, it does not take long time for them to get disappointed from sluggish performance at local level.

The new laws are being formulated at local level across the country. But, the two local governments of Banke could not so far publish gazette which resulted in disruption of public service delivery.

Baijanath and Raptisonari rural municipalities of Banke district have failed to come up with gazette. Though all the rural municipalities of Banke had appointed legal advisors as part of their preparation to expedite delivery of public service, the formulation of necessary laws for local government operation has hit the snag.
Baijanath rural municipality Chairperson Man Bahadur Ruchal said, “We are in the final stage of publishing gazette”. The service delivery of local government has been affected much in lack of laws.

Likewise, Chief Administrative Officer of Raptisonari rural municipality Top Bahadur KC said, “The village assembly has endorsed the laws and preparations are on to publish them”.

The local governments are required to formulate around five dozen laws to execute 22 single rights of the local level as specified in Annex 8 of the Constitution within the ambit of Local Government Operation Act-2074.

“The rights will be brought down to local level by formulating laws. So, it needs publication of decisions in gazette”, said advocate Basudev Gyawali, adding that, “It may have room for illegitimacy if works are executed without publishing in the gazette”. RSS