Author: Himalaya Post

Purna Bahadur Thapa Prosperity and development become a hotcake in these days. The dream of prosperity has further ignited among citizen with the government slogan of “Prosperous Nepal, Happy Nepali”.  Let’s assess the local government functions and hurdles to glimpse the big picture towards ‘prosperous Nepal and happy Nepali’. As the constitutional provision, by the end of Asadah, local governments have unveiled policies, programs and budgets for the fiscal year 2075/76.  Arguably, this is a first fiscal year of local levels which  had follow the seven steps planning process prescribed by the federal government which are regarded as democratic, participatory, equity and evidence based. Despite prescribed planning steps, complain was reported that some local governments who have a majority in their assembly did not follow these steps, instead ward level planning meeting was called with a short notice and selected like-minded people were invited. Focus on Infrastructure Development Government of Nepal has opted for formula-driven fiscal transfers: population, poverty and geography. Based on the formula one of the local governments of province number 1 had provided a ceiling ranges from 70 to 90 lakhs for each wards. Interestingly, intense focuses of ward level programs are for construction of road, bridge, sewage management and infrastructure development. One of the chairpersons expresses that “local citizens have perceive the meaning of development is an infrastructure development thus prioritized are made accordingly”. Same...