KATHMANDU: The agitating local body employees today threatened that they would begin strong and decisive protest beginning December 20. Their protests include gheraoing the country’s apex administrative body — Singha Durbar — and bringing all the activities at the local bodies throughout the country to a complete halt, among others. As per the protest plan, the garbage collection in the Kathmandu Valley will be disrupted indefinitely from December 20.Likewise, Singh Durbar will be gheraoed on December 24 while the Ministry of Local Development will also be gheraoed indefinitely from December 27. “We’ll obstruct every activity at the local bodies throughout the country if our demands are not met,” said Sushil Paudel, president, Nepal National Local Bodies Employees Association. “We want to be ensured with the trade union rights,” he said. They are demanding the government to provide facilities akin to the civil servants. The Local Bodies Joint Movement Central Coordination Committee, Local Body Employees Union, VDC Employees Union, Nepal Municipal Employees Association, among other organisations of the employees, have been on protest from Tuesday. Due to their protest, all the local bodies were shut down on the third consecutive day today. The employees have been agitating from the past two years demanding equal facilities to them equal to like of the civil servants. According to the Ministry of Local Development, the fourth amendment draft of the Local Self-Governance Regulation addressing majority of their demands was tabled in the Cabinet about three months ago, which is yet to be approved. According to the agitating staffs, although the agreements were made with three separate Local Development Ministers in 2007, 2008 and 2009, nothing has been implemented yet. “If the government approves the fourth amendment of the regulation, we will immediately call off the strike,” said Ganga Dhar Gautam, president, LBEU. The local bodies deal with various official processes, including registration from birth to death, different recommendations and local development activities as per the government plan and budget. There are 75 District Development Committees, 3,915 Village Development Committees and 58 Municipalities across the country. About 35,000 staffers, including about 7,000 temporary employees, are serving in these offices.