PARBAT, June 30: A governmental office in Parbat has been facing difficulties in its day-to-day functioning for the last one and a half months after two chiefs started taking charge of the office.

Problems arose after the then chief of the District Project Implementation Unit (DPIU) – Education, Under-Secretary Khimraj Bhujel who had been transferred to the office a year ago refused to change his office as per transfer order of employee adjustment in the new federal setup.

Bhujel has continued working at the office where Under-Secretary Yukta Prasad Sharma was transferred as the chief one and a half months ago. As a result, both the under-secretaries have been attending the office, marking their attendance on different registers.

Bhujel had kept the key to his erstwhile office for one month and refused to leave the office. He did not even let the newly-appointed Sharma mark his attendance on the register. Bhujel claimed that he would talk to ‘higher-ups’ in the capital to settle the issue in his favor and even went to Kathmandu but returned without a response a few days later. According to an employee at the DPIU, Bhujel again started to report at the office from Tuesday.

However, newly appointed Sharma has taken charge of the office since Monday. Although the day-to-day works of the office are being run from his bank account, Bhujel has been claiming in the meetings in the district that he is the head of the DPIU.  He has been reluctant to leave the office even after he has been transferred to a local unit as part of the adjustment of government employees in the new federal set up.

He has claimed that his transfer to a local unit is a part of a ploy to stall his promotion. “I have filed a case against the transfer at the Supreme Court,” Bhujel told Republica, “I will not go to any other office until the court takes a decision on the transfer.” 

He lamented the Department of Education’s decision to send a new head to the office while his transfer is still in controversy.

Meanwhile, Sharma has stuck his claim that he was transferred to the office by the government and that he should be the head of the DPIU. “The employees were directed to leave their erstwhile office within 21 days of the adjustment, however, Bhujel has not left the DPIU,” he told Republica.

The employees at the DPIU have said that the day-to-day functioning of the office has been affected due to the confusion about the leadership of the office. An employee told Republica, “We are confused whose orders should we take.” 

The employees have complained that the developments in the current fiscal year have not been verified, payments are due, and employees have not been properly mobilized due to the confusion. Similarly, the reconstruction of schools damaged by the 2015 mega-earthquake in the district which is under the DPIU has also not been able to catch pace with only seven of the 175 such schools reconstructed till date.

 
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