A meeting of the government secretaries, chaired by Chief Secretary Lok Darsan Regmi, on Tuesday decided that relevant ministries of the federal government would depute civil servants to provincial and local government agencies.

The decision comes at a time when provincial and local governments are struggling to carry out their daily activities due to lack of staff.   

According to Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), the decision was taken as a short term measure to address staff shortage.

“The adjustment and management of civil servants at provincial ministries and local units will be carried out by their relevant ministries at the centre. For instance, if the agriculture ministry of a province is grappling with staff shortage, the agriculture ministry at the centre will depute staff at the province,” said PMO spokesperson Binod Bahadur Kunwar.

The meeting also reviewed progress on the implementation of the government’s annual policies and programmes, status of various infrastructure projects directly concerned to the people and formulation of laws as per the new Constitution, among others.

The meeting concluded that only status of formation of new laws in line with the Constitution is making desired progress while other aspects like bringing changes at people’s expectation has failed to give tangible results.

According to a PMO statement, the secretaries presented the progress report on  the policies and programmes and shared the challenges their concerned ministries were facing while implementing them.

Progress on Melamchi Drinking Water Project, post-earthquake reconstruction works and several hydroelectricity and irrigation projects were discussed at the meeting.