The Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development (MoFALD) says it has asked the Ministry of General Administration (MoGA) to send 387 under-secretaries and section officers so that it could mobilise them as chief executives of 744 local level units that came into existence since Friday replacing 3,157 village development committees and 217 municipalities. 

Under the new restructure, the country now has four metropolises, 13 sub metropolises, 246 municipalities and 481 village councils. The number of wards across the country is 6,680.

Since the government has announced local level elections for May 14, a MoFALD official said the ministry wants to make the newly formed local units functional as soon as possible. 

According to MoFALD, it plans to appoint under-secretaries as chief executives of municipalities and section officers as chief executives of the village councils. The four metropolises—Kathmandu, Lalitpur, Pokhara and Bharatpur—will be headed by joint secretaries. “We have requested MoGA to send 196 under-secretaries and 191 section officers to make the new local units functional,” said MoFALD Spokesperson Kedar Nath Sharma, adding that it plans to mobilise 357 officials as chief executives on its own.

There are around 5,000 civil servants and around 16,000 locally recruited staffers employed at the local level. 

MoFALD officials said they plan to mobilise chief executives in all local units within two weeks. We have already issued circulars to all local development officers to send details of staffers so that we can choose from among them to appoint them as chief executives, they said, adding they, however, will be appointed pro tem until the local polls.

“A decision on permanent arrangement will be taken after we complete the organisation and management survey,” said Kedar Bahadur Adhikari, secretary at MoFALD. “Chief executives can hire temporary technical staff on their own until polls are held.” A total of 52,080 officials—70 in each local units—will be required, according to the standard set by the Local Level Restructuring Commission.