Jha, Bhusal smoke peace pipe:Transfer of employees under MoLD to be revoked

Kathmandu, March 14:

The dispute between Minister for Local Development Ram Chandra Jha and Minister for General Administration Pampha Bhusal seems to have settled, after the latter decided to reconsider the decision to transfer employees under the Local Development Ministry.

The two ministers were at loggerheads after Bhusal transferred the employees under the Ministry for Local Development (MoLD) without consulting with the minister concerned. Bhusal had transferred 152 VDC secretaries, 12 section officers and six under-secretaries under the MoLD. Writing to Bhusal, he had objected to the decision and had refused to implement it.

Because of the dispute, employees who had been transferred from and to the MoLD were in confusion, as Jha had refused to accept the employees transferred to his ministry.

A secretary-level meeting between the two ministries held yesterday decided to reconsider the transfer decision. According to a source, Ministry of General Administration (MoGA) agreed to reconsider its decision after the MoLD raised some legal and practical questions over the transfer. Jha’s main objection was to the transfer of VDC secretaries. “The posts of secretaries in more than 390 VDCs are lying vacant and it is creating many problems in the villages. But the MoGA transferred 152 secretaries, making the posts vacant in other VDCs,” Jha told this daily today, adding, “Now that the MoGA has agreed to reconsider its decision, the previous decision will be revoked.”

However, Bhusal declined to comment on the issue, saying, “This is not a big issue. We will solve it.”