Kapilvastu, February 24: The day-to-day business of the Krishnanagar municipality in the Kapilvastu district has been stalled for over three months in absence of the chief administrative officer.
The municipality’s former chief administrative officer, Damodar Bhandari, was transferred to the Tinau rural municipality in Palpa district in December 2019. Since then it has been devoid of the chief administrative officer. As a result, the development works in the municipality have been stagnant.
The municipality’s mayor Rajat Pratap Shah and deputy- mayor Sabnam Khatun says that they have repeatedly asked the concerned Ministry to fulfill the vacant post but to no avail. “We came to Kathmandu for as many as five times for urging the Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration to resolve the issue. However, it continues to downplay it,” bemoans Mayor Shah.
Deputy-mayor Khatun says that the ministry is doing virtually even though they have submitted a memorandum to it twice through the District Administration Office to appoint a chief administrative officer of the municipality. She blames that the Ministry itself is hampering the development of Krishnanagar as the administrative works here have come to a standstill.
Moreover, the municipality employees have not been paid their salaries. The teachers in the community schools in this local unit have started their protest as they were also bereft of salaries for nearly 5 months. The teachers of 27 community schools and 22 religious schools have begun demonstrating in a phase-wise manner.
They will stage a two-hour sit-in in front of the Municipality. National Teachers’ Association’s Town Chairperson Prahlad Prasad Pandey warns that if there is no resolution to the release of the budget from the concerned Ministry, they will shut-down all the community schools in the town and will take to street if their voices were unheeded. Teacher Pradeep Singh says that the budget allocated for remuneration for teachers, school staffers, physical infrastructure and scholarship among others has not been released in absence of the administration chief in the municipality. RSS
The local health posts in his local unit are also running low on medicines. If the administration chief is not appointed here timely, it is likely to adversely impact the locals for the local health posts that will run short of medicines.
