The Local Level Restructuring Commission submitted its final report on Monday to the federal affairs minister in the presence of Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal without completing one of its two major assignments as its one-year tenure expired.

Commission Chairman Balananda Poudel, accompanied by other commissioners, submitted the incomplete report to Deputy PM and Local Development Minister Kamal Thapa without forming special, protected and autonomous areas.

Article 295 (3) of the constitution mandated it to delineate village and municipal councils in addition to forming special, protected and autonomous areas. The commission completed the delineation of local units on January 6 but failed to complete the other important task.

The nine-member commission was formed on March 14 last year. According to Madhav Adhikari, a member of the commission, the LLRC has, however, set criteria for forming the special, protected and autonomous areas. The commission, which submitted its recommendations for local level restructuring three months before deadline, was reluctant to complete the other task as the government decided to revise its report.

Officials at the commission had been claiming that the government had no right to alter the report formulated by a constitutional body. “We have determined the basis for formation of special, protected and autonomous regions, based on which the government can fix their numbers,” said Adhikari.

In principle, areas resided by marginalised communities or remote places devoid of state facilities will be formed as special zones while places with minority or threatened groups will be categorised as protected areas. An area dominated by one community or a linguistic or cultural group would be designated an autonomous region.

The commission blamed the government’s non-cooperation in providing the records of such people or communities for the failure to accomplish its task. “We needed the actual data and places where such people or communities reside. But we did not get them,” said Dormani Poudel, another member of the commission. PM Dahal, however, praised the commission and former local development minister Hitraj Pandey for completing the crucial work on time. “Locally, people have got their rights in a true sense for the first time in Nepal’s history,” he remarked, while receiving the report.