KATHMANDU, July 23: The government has decided to run local bodies through a political mechanism comprising all political parties represented in the Constituent Assembly (CA). [break]
A cabinet meeting at Singha Durbar on Thursday authorized the Ministry of Local Development (MoLD) to run local bodies as provisioned in the article 139 (2) of the Interim Constitution 2007.
Earlier, the Maoist-led government had decided to run the local bodies through a mechanism of eight major political parties, depriving fringe parties from being a part of such mechanism.
Local bodies include Metropolitan City, Sub-Metropolis, Municipality, District Development Committee (DDC) and Village Development Committee (VDC).
While the metropolis and municipalities are being run by executive officers, DDCs and VDCs are run by local development officers and VDC secretaries, respectively. The proposed political mechanism will function under them, according to Minister for Local Development Purna Kumar Sherma.
All candidates who contested in the first past the post election of the CA from the 25 political parties will get place in political mechanism. However, the provision is likely to deprive Madhes-based parties from representing in the political mechanisms in the hill districts as the parties had not filed candidacies in the election there.
Minister Sherma said the political mechanism will take decision on distributing budget and plan and run development projects at local level.
The cabinet meeting also decided to form a committee comprising various five ministries to provide relief to cholera-hit people in various districts in the midwestern region including Jajarkot and Rukum, said Minister for Supply Rajendra Mahato. The government has also decided to unveil a special relief package for cholera-hit people.
Among other things, the cabinet decided to appoint Sugat Ratna Kansakar as the chief executive officer of Nepal Airline Corporation and and Ram Ashish Gupta as top executive of Janakpur Cigarette Factory Limited. It also decided to form a high-level judicial probe commission to investigate the July 17 killing of Akhilendra Yadav in Itahari Bishnupur in Saptari district by Armed Police Force personnel.
Secretaries´ promotion likely on Friday
The Administration Committee of the cabinet is likely to promote 22 joint secretaries to the post of secretaries on Friday. A meeting of the committee has been called for 10 am Friday morning. Sources said that the meeting did not dwell on the issue of reinstating dismissed governor Bijaya Nath Bhattarai and appointing new chief secretary.
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