‘Provincial, local governments reluctant to formulate laws’

Kathmandu, February 12

Both local and provincial governments were reluctant to legislate important jurisdictional laws as they were not sure if their laws would conflict with the federal laws, a Democracy Resource Centre Nepal report states.

The report which was revealed today states that in absence of key federal framework legislation, most of the laws enacted by local and provincial governments in the first year were procedural and operational in nature.

However, the act related to operation of local government had established clarity in the functioning of key institutions. In one exceptional case, Province 2 passed the law related to provincial police despite concerns from the federal government. Lack of legal clarity on matters of shared jurisdictions remained the biggest challenge for effective implementation of both the local and provincial governments, the report says.

This is the third periodic report under the DRCN. It started observing the functioning of local and provincial governments from January 2018. During the reporting period between August and November, 2018, four research teams visited 45 local units in 19 districts across all seven provinces and interviewed 652 respondents. The DRCN observation was led by  Anubhav Ajeet and coordinated by Nayan Pokhrel.

The report states it resulted in jurisdictional conflicts between the governments in multiple cases, especially in matters related to taxation and revenue from natural resources. Their basic functions of the local governments were limited to service delivery,