The local bodies elections are long overdue as Nepal has been unable to hold them for the last 18 years.The government has announced that it would hold such polls by November/December.

The need of people’s representatives has been felt at the local level. A transitional arrangement of the new constitution has envisaged holding the local bodies elections.

However, governments one after another have failed to conduct such polls, although they say they are committed to hold them. Due to the delay in holding local polls the development activities have stagnated at grass roots level.

In the absence of elected officials in the VDCs and municipalities the bureaucrats have to run them. These government officials are not accountable to the people and the funds allocated for the local bodies are misused by persons not elected by the people, hence hampering the local developments.

Without elected officials manning the VDCs and municipalities it would be an arduous task to come up with projects and implement them. The projects should receive the consent from people at the grass root level.

The persisting vacuum in local governance and inability to hold the polls by all governments has given rise to frustration among the people. So far neither the ruling parties nor the opposition ones have made concrete efforts to restore elected local governance.

The number of local bodies in Nepal include 191 municipalities, 3,276 VDCs and 75 DDCs and there has been no elected representatives since 1997.

In the absence of consensus among the political parties the country has failed to hold timely local elections. Without the elected representatives, the governments have been unable to spend billions of rupees that was allocated for local development activities.

Presently, the budget allocated to the local bodies are being used in a most non-transparent manner.

Each VDC is entitled to spend a certain amount of money. As the elected and accountable bodies are absent, these resources provided by the government is not used or used in a very haphazard manner.

Holding the elections early would help strengthen democracy at the grassroots. These would also show the government’s presence at the local level from where people can have their work done.

The local polls will make the political parties and local bodies responsible and accountable to the people. It appears that these elections have been held up because the political parties and leaders fear that they would fare poorly should the elections are to be held.

The political parties in the government usually are in a hurry to hold the local bodies polls while they face opposition from the other parties which are reluctant to do so in one guise or the other. Had there been elected local bodies the people would not have suffered as much as they are doing at the present.

The recent earthquake showed how such bodies were missed. It has been over a year now since the devastating earthquakes yet the reconstruction and rehabilitation drives lack strength.

As the largest party in Parliament Nepali Congress should have welcomed the plan of holding the local polls. The NC itself and other parties had vowed to hold the local elections within six months from the date of holding the second CA election.

Even the EC has also said that it is fully-prepared to do so. So, there must not be any delay in holding the local polls.

Process simplified

The National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) reviewed its earlier policy and decided that even the Class B and Class C financial institutions and development banks could also disburse the government grant to the earthquake victims identified by the NRA.

Earlier, the authority had a policy that only Class A financial institutions and commercial banks could disburse the grant to the quake victims.

Apart from the Kathmandu Valley the NRA has already identified as many as 300,925 beneficiaries from 11 quake affected districts.

Those people will get the government grant from these financial institutions based in the rural areas.

It is required that all the beneficiaries have a bank account in their name and the BFIs will issue the grant amount they obtain from the District Treasury Controller Offices to the beneficiaries.

NRA had to revise its previous policy after quake victims complained that it would be difficult for them to visit the commercial banks that are located away from their localities.