BAGLUNG, Sept 16: The newly elected people's representatives have completed their 100 days in office which is also considered as the honeymoon period for a new administration. Despite making numerous pledges and vows to the voters before the elections, they have failed to impress them with their achievements. Most of them blame lack of employees in their offices for the sluggish progress.
Even after so many days of the elections, the government has failed to depute sufficient staffers at the local units. This has affected the development projects in the district. "We know the locals are watching us but still we are unable to live up to their expectations due to the lack of enough employees," said Khadak Thapa, chairperson of Kathekhola-1. He laments that they have been tired of making the same excuses to the locals.
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As per the new local level restructuring, there should be 11 employees in municipalities and nine in rural municipalities. However, as informed by Resham Lal Chapagain, a non-Gazetted Officer at the District Coordination Committee, around 214 staffers are still required in the 10 local units of Baglung. According to him, ten engineers, three sub-engineers, 10 computer operators, 31 ward secretaries, nine assistant administrators, 84 officers in the accounts sections and administration department and 66 office helpers are required in the local units of the district.
Currently, only four officials are taking the responsibility of Dhorpatan Municipality. The municipality has altogether nine wards out of which six are running without ward secretaries. It has been challenging for the representatives to conduct various activities in the absence of technical and skilled manpower.
Similarly, in Galkot Municipality there are 11 wards but only six of them have ward secretaries. Shortage of manpower has posed a serious problem to formulating more than 300 plans and projects of the district. Likewise, Bishnu Prasad Subedi, acting chief of Jaimani Municipality laments that the new representatives have not been able to fulfill their promises due to the lack of manpower. Instead of nine, only three officials are handling the official works of Nishikhola Rural Municipality. "This has badly affected the first four-monthly development plan of the rural municipality," claims Taranath Poudel, chairperson of Nishikhola. According to him, they have time and again tried to draw the attention of the District Coordination Committee but nothing has been done yet.
Ram Prasad Adhikari, the local development officer of the district, says that there are not enough employees in the district, making it challenging to mobilize staffers in the local units. "The local units are putting a great pressure on us and demanding employees but we can't do so as there are not enough employees in the government offices in the district," he said adding, "We have proposed Federal Administration Restructuring Committee to manage 114 staffers for the local units."
