SURKHET: The second meeting of the Karnali Province Coordination Council is underway today.

The meeting that kicked off on Thursday has been discussing on topics such as the works and functioning of the federal, provincial and local governments; policy level harmonisation; strategic partnership in plan management and effective implementation of the plans and programmes.

The meeting  chaired by Council coordinator and Chief Minister of Karnali Province Government, Mahendra Bahadur Shahi is holding deliberations on the concurrent and individual rights of the three-tier governments, their jurisdiction and exercise, and allocation and utilisation of natural resources.

In the meeting, the participants stressed on consolidating collaboration, coexistence and coordination among the federal, provincial and local levels as the main basis as provisioned in the constitution of Nepal. They also suggested focusing on the development and prosperity of Karnali state arguing that the provision of the State Coordination Council has been made by the Local Government Operation Act, 2074 BS for fostering coordination between the State and local levels in line with the constitutional provisions.

On the first day of the meeting on Thursday, National Natural Resources and Fiscal Commission chairman Balananda Poudel made a presentation on the interrelations and allocation of rights among the federal, province and the local levels while National Planning Commission (NPC) member Min Bahadur Shahi made a presentation on the 15th Five-Year-Plan of the Government of Nepal and coordination among all the three tiers of government regarding plan formulation, Chief Secretary of the Province Government, Kebal Prasad Bhandari said.

Likewise, Vice Chairman of the Karnali Province Planning Commission, Prof Dr Punya Prasad Regmi shared the First Periodic Plan of the Karnali Province and the works carried out so far by the Commission while Province Chief Secretary Bhandari made a presentation on the policy and programme of the province for the current fiscal year as well as the functioning of the Province Government. Secretary at the Province Ministry of Economic Affairs and Planning, Bishnu Prasad Nepal presented a paper on implementation of the current fiscal year's budget and fiscal transfer, an official of the Central Bureau of Statistics presented paper on the 12th national census and the representatives of the Province and Local Governance Support Programme will present a paper on capacity building of the provincial government and the local levels, the Office of the Chief Minister and Council of Ministers stated.

The chiefs of the District Coordination Committees, the mayors and deputy mayors of municipalities, and the Chair and Vice-Chair of the Rural Municipalities of the province will be given five minutes each to put their views regarding the exercise of the concurrent rights, strategic preparation in plan management and forging the policy coordination between the province government and local levels regarding utilisation and distribution of natural resources, on the second day of the meeting today. Three hundred people including the ministers of the province government, the office-bearers and members of the national and province planning commission, experts, the chiefs of the District Coordination Committees, mayors and deputy mayors of 25 municipalities, chair and vice-chair of 54 rural municipalities from 10 districts of the Karnali province, the secretary of the province and the chief administrative officers of all the local levels. The meeting will last for two days.