Admn Reforms

MINISTER for Information and Communications and General Administration Ramesh Nath Pandey reiterated the government's commitment to implement the administrative reform programme to make the administrative machinery transparent and responsible to the people. Pandey expressed this while addressing the first regular meeting of the Administration Reforms Committee as the chairman of the committee the other day. Administration, popularly called as the permanent government is the backbone of any nation to carry out development and other everyday activities smoothly. In the absence of an efficient administration equipped with skilled and honest manpower a country cannot make a desired progress. Nepal's public administration is not free from flaws and difficulties. Prevalence of rampant corruption, red tapism, over staffing, delay and presence of the people with fake certificates are some of the major problems facing the country's administration. Though efforts were made in the past to reform the administration by forming different committees, the attempts were limited only in the formation of such committees and receiving the reports, thanks to the country's unstable politics. If a government happened to implement some of the recommended reform measures, the consecutive governments would be there to go against such reforms. The cut in the number of ministries during the premiership of Girija Prasad Koirala and their increase during the time of Sher Bahadur Deuba are the indications of such odd happenings.

Moreover, each government formed in the last decade politicised the administration and added the number of ministries only to stick to power by appointing as many ministers as possible. Consequently, our administration is failing to impart services in a fair manner. Also our administration lacks adequate women representatives and participation of indigenous nationalities and oppressed communities. And the present government seems to be aware of all these negative aspects of the country's administration and wants to do away with existing anomalies by implementing some concrete reform measures. Minister Pandey's remarks that proposed reforms in the civil service would dissuade the prevalence of fake certificates in the administrative services, remove gender inequality and help increase the participation of indigenous people in the administration are encouraging in this context.

Make Them Work

TREKKING agents, guides and representatives of the Annapurna Conservation Area Project (ACAP), apart from terming the environmental officers who mandatorily accompany trekking and mountaineering groups as "unnecessary burden" as well as a major hindrance to the growth of trekking sector and business, have also demanded that the provision of the environmental officer, as per a news item carried by this daily the other day, be scrapped. If trekking, over the decades, has evolved as a major tourism-related activity and business in the country, then the innumerable trekking agencies and agents, along with their trekking guides, can verily claim to have contributed their mite in popularising trekking among tourists coming to the country. It could be for this reason that thousands of trekkers come to the country every year. And, in the bargain, not only providing direct and indirect employment opportunities to thousands of Nepalese but also contributing much to the development efforts of the nation by foreign exchange earnings to the national exchequer's coffers. As such, as and when the trekking agencies do come up with suggestions, especially those that could give a much-needed fillip to the currently slack trekking activities in the country, it looks to reason for the concerned tourism authorities to lend them their ears. And, after having mulled over the pros and cons of the trekking agencies' suggestions, to take appropriate measures to remove the bottlenecks, if any, that could come in the way of imparting long-term sustainability to this major tourism-related activity and business of the country.

Having said this, what also goes without saying is that just because the trekking agents and guides of some areas have found some environmental officers to be negligent in the discharge of their duties and responsibilities does not mean the provision of attaching environmental officers with trekking and mountaineering teams should be scrapped. Rather, these environmental officers do have an important role to play in protecting the nation's environment. For, considering the fragile nature of the nation's environment, what simply cannot be denied is that the thousands of trekkers coming to the country every year would, sooner or later, be leaving their impacts on the nation's precarious nature and environment. As such, the trekking agencies, along with the concerned authorities that depute environmental officers to the trekking and mountaineering teams, should work together to ensure that the assigned environmental officers do not play truant or become derelict in their duties.