FEATURES NEWS THE RISING NEPAL (DAILY)

By Mukti Rijal

IT IS a Ward committee office of the Lekhnath Municipality at Sisuwa very close to the Begnas Lake. Mr Harsha Bahadur Shrestha is the chairman of the Ward Committee and he frequents to the office now and then. Together with the Ward Committee Office, a local youth club and post office are put up. It is surrounded by a busy locality with a hemline of tea stalls, stationers and groceries. It is a typical Nepali settlement with some of the urban features. Its setting and natural charm are bounteous.

Training

The ward committee office provides space for a training organised by Sristi-an organisation working for empowering elected women councilors and social activities.

The Lakhnath Municipality hosts the training as co-sponsor. The women councilors elected to ward committees of the Lekhnath municipality are not a simple lot. They are different from the women representatives elected to many of local government institutions in the sense that they know about what they should do as the elected trustees of the people. They can define their developmental needs very well and contextualise them properly. In a brainstorming exercise they define development in holistic sense, not in segmental or narrowed sectoral confine. Not only physical infrastructure, development for them is human capability-an absence of human deprivation.

One of the woman councilors says "for development, peace and security are an imperative."

Development is a guarantee to live in peace and security. A woman councilor insists that development is impossible without people’s inquisitiveness to advance questioning statusquoism. Another woman participant stresses development can occur only when social capital (Samajik Puja) is allowed to grow through conducive environment.

"We have given priority to consciousness building of women councilors" informs Shaligram Poudel mayor of the Lekhnath municipality. "We hold meetings for all the women councilors of the fifteen ward committees, every month and discuss about their needs and priorities," adds the mayor.

Moreover, the municipality organises training for women councilors very often and nominates them in turn when opportunities for trainings are available. "We have participated in several training events thanks to the initiatives of the municipality, says Mrs Kaushila Adhikari," a ward committee member.

"Ward Committee in Lekhnath Municipality are being strengthened. It is an important emphasis of a new municipality created just three years ago. Each ward committee is provided with a secretary. The municipality sponsors trainings for ward committee secretaries so that they can handle their tasks efficiently," says the erudite and soft spoken mayor.

The wards are being developed as working unit. The ward committee members are assigned responsibilities specific to their interest and areas. Not only the functions but settlements are divided to each ward committee members so that each of them have to look after as a matter of their duty and obligation. This contrasts with the working approach of several other municipalities in the Kingdom. The ward committee carry out some of the regulatory functions but not the development related functions whereas in the Lekhnath municipality the Mayor has a vision of empowering Ward Committee as real functional unit. "This will take the municipality closer to the people," says the mayor.

The Ward Committee Office of the municipality contains all the informations relating to the services offered by the municipality. In order that the administration and service provisions are transparent all informations and requirements are made public to alleviate hassles of the people. Even notices issued by the government that are relevant to the people are pasted in the notice board of the Ward Committee office. This is imported for the local government to ensure that people get services and needed responses at their neighbourhood.

Lekhnath municipality is full of beautiful natural domains. Rivers, lakes, diverse vegetation and unique landforms are features of the municipality. The conservation and development plan of the municipality has been prepared in cooperation with IUCN-World Conservation Union-Nepal. Altogether fifty one projects have been proposed under the conservation and development plan. The projects include waste management plan, ecozoning of wetland sites, construction of public toilets, demarcation of lake area and buffer zones, development of bylaws and their implementation and so on. The municipality is poor in terms of capital resources. Though it is trying to raise its revenue volume, it is not that easy. Octroi and vehicles taxes are scrapped by the Local Self Governance Act. The Act has given several taxation options including the integrated land and property tax. But it is not possible for the municipality to harness the tax or it lacks adequate data base, among others.

Garden city

The mayor envisions to develop the municipality as a garden city of seven lakes. He has plans at hand to develop it as a model municipality. But the crux lies whether he will be able to mobilise support for the same before the beautiful municipality in the Pokhara valley is spoiled and defiled.

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