Clad in Newari sari and choli, she went inside the ground floor of the four-storey office building only to see yet another chaotic crowd where everyone used every opportunity to get his or her work done first. [break]
Laxmi then stopped for a minute before finally deciding to jostle through the crowd to the desk where she was supposed to get her land-related work done. To her disappointment, the official at the desk turned her back, saying her work would not be done Monday. She was not given any reasons. Nor was she given another date when she would be served.
This is a violation of both a recent pledge by Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal and a cabinet decision to implement that promise.
Had the January 28 cabinet decision and the prime minister’s promise of January 25 to improve service delivery from government offices meant anything, the Land Revenue Office would have given her a token once she entered the office and then a written clarification (under the written clarification system) why her work could not be done on Tuesday. The token is supposed to let her know when her work would be done and who would do it.
Prime Minister Dahal, in his January 25 televised address to the nation, had promised to enforce a token system in government offices to make public service delivery effective. He had further promised the people that government offices would give written clarifications to service seekers if services are not available on a particular day.
Endorsing the PM’s address, the cabinet on January 28 had decided to enforce a token system by February 2.
Like at the Land Revenue Office, it was business as usual Monday and Tuesday at the Transport Management Office at Ekantakuna, Lalitpur and at Kathmandu Metropolitan City, the two main offices where service is among the worst: no token system and no written clarifications.
No ministry or government office in Kathmandu and Lalitpur contacted by myrepublica.com on Monday and Tuesday seemed bothered to meet the February 2 deadline for translating into reality the PM’s commitment and the cabinet decision on providing better services through a token system and written clarifications. They said they are making preparations to implement the token and written clarification systems.
When asked why the February-2 deadline was missed, spokesperson at the Local Development Ministry Dinesh Kumar Thapaliya said, “We have already issued a circular on implementation of the PM’s commitment.”
Similarly, Krishna Raj Adhikari, spokesperson at the Ministry of Land Reform and Management, said that his ministry was yet to formally receive the cabinet decision. “However, we have asked the Land Reform Department verbally to implement the decision,” he said, defending non-implementation of the PM’s commitment.
When asked why offices under his ministry missed the February 2 deadline, Yubaraj Pandey, secretary at the Ministry of Labor and Transportation, said the transportation office would be able to adopt the token system only from Sunday.
Just a day after his address, Prime Minister Dahal had directed all the government secretaries to implement his commitments and had given a specific deadline for implementation.
“We received the cabinet decision on adopting the token system just today (Tuesday). We will issue circulars to all the offices under the ministry very soon,” said Nabin Ghimire, spokesperson at the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Ghimire said it would take some days to implement the cabinet decision and the PM´s commitment because of load-shedding.
According to the cabinet decision, district administration offices under the Home Ministry and the National Vigilance Center (NVC) are required to see to it that the government service delivery system improves from February 2.
“We will start the monitoring from this week,” said Kedar Man Prajapati, NVC spokesperson, without giving the exact day for starting the monitoring.
kiran@myrepublica.com
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