(Bimal Bahadur Bista)
Doti, December 30: Nine local levels in the district have been running without chief administrative officers, thereby affecting public service delivery. There are two municipalities and seven rural municipalities in the district.
The post of Undersecretary as the Chief Administrative Officer at Silgadhi municipality has not got the Undersecretary, but an assistant forest officer is running office as officiating chief administrative officer for nearly three years here. After the assistant forest office, Bhojraj Sharma has been given the responsibility of Chief Administrative Officer, the works relating to the forest sector have been badly affected.
Similarly, Shikhar municipality is also running under an officiating chief though the quota is of Undersecretary. The government staff working in various offices as of health, education, and agriculture are often brought to the municipality offices to work as the chief administrative officer.
Even the school supervisors are assigned the role of chief administrative officer in the rural municipalities. School supervisor Shankar Suchikar has been assigned as chief administrative officer at Jorayal rural municipality, while other rural municipalities have nayab Subba working as the administrative officers. Ward No 5 Chairperson at Jorayal rural municipality, Dhwoj Bahadur Deuba, said it was not comfortable to work with the officiating administrative officer because the policy level activities were not properly discussed and executed.
A social activist at KI Singh rural municipality, Jagat Bahadur Balayar, showed concern why the posts of chief administrative officers were not fulfilled. General Secretary of Doti Chamber of Commerce, Dipak Bahadur Khadka, informed that as the local levels were run with officiating staffs, corruption was institutionalized at local levels. RSS
