President Bidya Devi Bhandari on Sunday promulgated the ordinance on Integration of Civil Servants.

Earlier on Monday (December 3), the government had approved the Civil Servants Adjustment Ordinance in a bid to address the shortfall of human resource in provincial and local administrations and forwarded it to the President’s office for authentication.

Leaders of the main opposition Nepali Congress (NC) have been criticising the move saying that the government was reluctant to inform the Parliament about the ordinance fearing backlash on multiple issues like rape and murder of Nirmala Panta.

According to constitution, the parliament has to endorse the ordinance, which will be replaced by another bill, within six months.

The president’s approval has paved the way to initiate the process for integration of civil servants in the province and local level.

However, the civil servants are not happy with the government’s move. They are of the view that issuing the ordinance right before the winter session of Parliament is undemocratic. The Civil Servant Adjustment Act was introduced last year after deliberation in the Parliament.

According to the ordinance, the government has decided to provide various facilities like increasing the grade of civil servants, who show their readiness to work for province and local level.

The government has also decided to promote the civil servants who are capable for upper level. The ordinance has given continuation to most of the provisions brought by the previous Act.

In the first phase, the government will call for applications from the civil servants interested for integration.

Later, the Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Administration will deploy the civil servants in the concerned offices who submit applications within the given time frame.

Those who are deployed through the process should join the office within 35 days.

The ordinance has a provision for sacking the civil servants failing to reach the assigned office within 35 days.

Government sources said early endorsement of the ordinance was essential to deploy civil servants to the provinces and the local level from Kathmandu as they cannot recruit new staff without passing the Federal Public Service Commission Act first.