The government has formed a local body restructuring commission under the leadership of former secretary Balananda Paudel, as per the constitutional requirement of a mechanism to determine the number and borders of Village and Municipal Councils within six months of the statute promulgation. 

Tuesday marks six months of adoption of the Constitution of Nepal.

A Cabinet meeting on Monday night formed the nine-member commission with Paudel as the coordinator while Shyam Bhurtel, Dormani Poudel, Madhav Adhikari, Pabitra Shrestha Subba, Sunil Ranjan Singh and Dhiraj Shah are the members.

Government spokesperson and Minister for Information and Communications Sher-dhan Rai said that a joint-secretary will be appointed as member secretary of the commission and that one more member will be appointed in future. 

Article 295 of the constitution states that the tenure of the commission is one year.

On January 28, the Development Committee of Parliament had instructed the government to immediately form the commission. As the country has opted for a federal administrative model, restructuring of the state, including local bodies, is one of the major tasks.

According to Article 56 of the constitution, the state will be restructured into three levels—federal, provincial and local. At the local level, the constitution outlines Village Councils, Municipal Councils and District Assemblies which will replace the 

existing Village Development Committees, municipalities and District Development Committees, respectively.

There are one metropolitan city, 12 sub-metropolitan cities, 204 municipalities and 3,157 VDCs in the country.

The constitution also provisions a federal commission for making suggestions on matters relating to the state boundaries. The commission will be tasked with working out the details of the seven provinces outlined in the new charter.

Formation of the commission has been delayed due to the demands of the Madhes-based parties to revisit the provincial boundaries. Without the commission, the committee formed on Monday cannot work unless the federal boundaries are laid out through political consensus.