Kathmandu, July 18 Local Bodies Commission has fixed the number of local bodies at 565 across the country, but said that the total number may come down as there are chances of merger of some units. The commission also fixed the number of units that each district will have. Organising a press conference here today, Chair of the Commission Balanand Paudel said the commission had deployed Technical Committee from today to carry out work related to determining the boundaries of local bodies within a month. Paudel said the Technical Committee was given almost a month to do the job of determining the boundaries of local units, but the success of their task would largely depend on how the local stakeholders and political parties cooperate with the committee. The Technical Committee led by Local Development Officers in each district will take into account the clusters of ethnic communities and people’s accessibility to service delivery centres. Paudel said the service delivery offices would remain functioning from the same places and those offices would deliver more services. Paudel said the commission’s tasks were challenging as it was facing a tight deadline. “Our work is important because provincial and general elections cannot be held without holding the local polls first,” Paudel added. He said the commission would have to take permission from the government to break wards as there was need for it in some places. The commission fixed the minimum criteria for village council, municipal council, sub-metropolis and metropolis. As per the set criteria, a unit with population of at least 150,000 will be eligible to gain the status of sub-metropolis and a unit with population of 300,000 will be eligible to gain the status of metropolis. In the Tarai, a village council needs to have at least 50,000 population and a municipality needs a population of 75,000 . As per the new criteria, a village council should have 15,000 population in the mountain region (applicable in all mountain areas) and a municipality needs to have 20,000 population in the region. Similarly, in the mountain region (with hill areas), there should be 25,000 population in a village council and 35,000 population in the municipality. In the hills, village council and municipality should have 25,000 and 35,000 population respectively. The commission has also fixed the criteria for village council and municipality in the inner Madhes (with hill areas) to have 50,000 and 75,000 population respectively. As per the criteria fixed by the commission, each district should have at least three local units.