The government will also have to allocate a huge amount of money for the development of infrastructure, which will be an uphill task in the federal setup

The Local Bodies Commission formed by the government a few months ago to restructure the number of local bodies has proposed 565 local units, almost seven times less than the existing number of local bodies including VDCs and municipalities.

The commission led by Balananda Poudel has also fixed the number of local units that each district shall have in the federal setup.

However, the commission has assigned a technical committee to determine the boundaries of all local units. The technical committee led by local development officers in each district is expected to carry out its job within a month.

The technical committee will have to take into account the cluster of ethnic communities and people’s accessibility to service delivery centres to be set up at convenient locations as per the population distribution.

For the time being, the existing service centres will be functioning from the same places. While determining boundaries of the local units the technical committee will also have to break some wards. But the technical committee will have to take permission from the government before breaking those wards.

The Election Commission has also advised the commission not to break the existing wards as the last population census was done ward-wise.

As per the new criteria set by the commission a local unit having a population of 300,000 will be eligible for a metropolis, a unit with a population of 150,000 can be declared a sub-metropolis.

In the Tarai, a unit having the population of 50,000 and 75,000 will be eligible for village council and municipality, respectively. In mountainous region, there must be a population of 15,000 to become a village council and 20,000 for a municipality.

In the mountain region with hills there should be a population of 25,000 and 35,000 to form a village council and a municipality, respectively. In the hilly areas, there must a population of 25,000 and 35,000 to be eligible for a village council and municipality, respectively.

In Inner Tarai combined with hills there must be a population of 50,000 and 75,000 for the village council and municipality, respectively.

The criteria set by the commission for local units are a general standard based on the country’s population distribution and the density of population in mountains, hills, Tarai and Inner Tarai.

The criteria may not be applicable in the districts such as Manang and Mustang where the total population is about 6000 and 13,000, respectively.

The commission, therefore, set an exception stating that each district should have at least three local units, meaning that a sparsely populated district can be divided into three local units.

As the commission has reduced the local units from the existing 3,900 VDCs and 204 urban centres to 565, the local units will be too big to provide services to the local people.

Considering the enormity of their size and population, the local units need to create various service centres at convenient locations to deliver services to the people.

The government will also have to allocate a huge amount of money for the development of infrastructure which will be an uphill task in the federal setup.

Climbing rules

With the mountaineering experience and accidents of the past years, including the recent ones in which dozens of mountaineers, including guides, perished, the government is setting new rules for climbing mountains.

Accordingly, lone climbing attempts on mountain peaks, including that of Sagarmatha, will probably be banned, so too will be those would-be climbers who are blind, double amputees, and over 75 years of age.

Foreigners who want to scale Sagarmatha or other peaks above 8,000 metres high must have scaled at least a peak above 7,000 metres high in order to be eligible to get a climbing permit.

The draft amendment to the Mountaineering Expedition Regulations under the Tourism Act provides that any climber must trek all the way from the base camp to the mountain peak (without the use of helicopters).

What the draft regulations should ensure is that accidents on the mountain trails will be minimized and everybody involved in the climbing expedition from the climbers to the government officials including liaison officers becomes more responsible.

Besides, any other wrong practices, such as fake claims to bravery and achievement should have no chance of success.