The Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) will be spending Rs8.4 million furnish offices of new mayor, vice-mayor, and ward chairs and members in 32 wards of the metropolis.

Kushal Enterprises, which won the metropolis’ tender two weeks ago, has assured

to deliver all pieces of furniture, including sofa sets, chairs, tea tables and carpets for rooms of the incoming mayor and sub-mayor by May 21. Furniture for the ward chairs and 128 members will be provided by May 24 and June 3 respectively.

The Ministry of Finance has allocated Rs10 million for each municipality to add infrastructure and refurbish their offices.

The metropolis has been without the elected representatives since July 16, 2002. The previous local level election was held in 1997.

The new mayor and the deputy mayor are expected to join office within a week of

their election.

The new mayor will draw Rs60,000 in salary along with other facilities like vehicles, telephone, stationeries, while the deputy mayor will have a salary of Rs 50,000 and the ward chair Rs 30,000.

“Setting up workstations for the newly-elected peoples’ representatives is our top

priority. We have already made a temporary set up for mayor and deputy mayor at our office in Sundhara,” said KMC’s Chief Executive Officer Ishwor Raj Poudel.

A CEO-led team is scheduled to visit all the 32 ward offices under the

KMC on Tuesday.

“We are also holding a meeting with the incumbent ward representatives on ways to carry forward works with the elected representatives,” said Poudel.

There are now four metropolises, 13 sub-metropolises, 246 municipal councils,

481 village councils and 6,680 wards across the country in place of 3,157 VDCs and

217 municipalities that came into existence after the reinstatement of democracy in 1990. The constitution grants 22 absolute powers to the local units while they share 15 more powers to the central and provincial governments.