Valley
Dev coordination in Capital remains idle
A coordination committee formed more than a year ago to guide different government offices in the Capital towards integrated development approaches is lying dysfunctional.Gaurav Thapa
A coordination committee formed more than a year ago to guide different government offices in the Capital towards integrated development approaches is lying dysfunctional.
In January last year, the then Chief District Officer, Ek Narayan Aryal, established the Development Coordination Committee to solve the problems in development planning and distribution in Kathmandu Metropolitan City. Chiefs of the Kathmandu Valley Development Authority, the Division Road Office Kathmandu, the Nepal Electricity Authority, Metropolitan Police Commissioner’s Office and Kathmandu Upatyaka Khanepani Limited were appointed as members of the committee, with chief and executive officer of KMC as its coordinator.
It was decided at the time that the committee should meet every month to discuss issues on development management, but it has failed to hold a single meeting so far. Chief and executive officer of KMC Rudra Singh Tamang said the committee has not been active as it is difficult to coordinate meetings between heads of different government bodies. “When I assumed office, the structure was in shambles. But we are trying to resurrect it,” he said.
A similar committee was active when the KMC had an elected mayor as its chief some 14 years ago. In the absence of such institutional structures, different government bodies carry out individual projects which would often overlap and sometimes even affect each other.
This was seen last year when the KUKL started laying pipelines meant for the Melamchi Water Supply Project in the streets of the Capital, leaving ditches and manholes uncovered. The KMC had to sign an MoU with the KUKL in December last year to fix the problem.
Tamang said the government’s apportioning of a fixed budget among development projects was a major cause preventing the committee from function properly. “They are not able to alter their
programmes, so meetings do not help much in coordination,” he said. But he assured that the committee would be resurrected very shortly, adding that municipal chiefs in the Valley had pledged to cooperate for making joint policy-level decisions on environment conservation and resources management.
“We are considering to restructure the committee before bringing it back into operation,” he added.