Govt has no right to review LLRC report: Poudel

Kathmandu, Feb. 3: Chief of the Local Level Restructuring Commission (LLRC), Balananda Poudel, Friday argued that the government had no right to review the number of local bodies the LLRC had fixed.

"The Commission has even compromised on its earlier decision to create 565 local bodies to accommodate the demand of the political parties,” LLRC chairman Poudel said at an interaction on 'Local level restructuring and media’. “From the perspective of capacity, most of the local bodies will be weak. The country needs lesser number of local bodies."

Poudel also expressed his belief that the government would not return the report on restructuring the local bodies, which the Commission submitted to the government last month.

He said that about 80 per cent of restructuring the local bodies, including special and autonomous areas, had been completed.

"The Commission has almost completed its duties except for determining the number and boundaries of special, protected and autonomous regions and some other proposals," he said.

However, the LLRC is yet to offer recommendations to the government on the division of power and resources among the federal, provincial and local levels as well as village council, municipality and district assembly.

Likewise, work is underway to prepare proposals on the required administrative structure and human resources at the local level, appropriate framework of local services and integrated and coordinated development framework for the Kathmandu Valley and the capital city.

The LLRC has only 40 days to complete all these tasks as its tenure will be over on March 13 this year.

There are less chances of extending the time for the job since the constitution has allowed only a year to the Commission to complete the task of restructuring the local bodies and recommend to the government on various issues related to restructuring.

Poudel said that the areas and communities that were socially and economically backward, poor and remote would be recommended to be declared as special regions while absolute minority, endangered and marginalised ethnicities, communities and cultural areas would be protected regions, and areas that had a dense presence of a single ethnicity, community, language and culture would be defined as autonomous regions.

Local governance expert Krishna Prasad Sapkota said that the local government should be strong as per its jurisdiction to address the concerns of the people and provide services.

He said that any step to defer the local election would be regression. 
The programme was organised by Development Communication Society (SODEC) Nepal.