Empower Village Development Committee
Bottom up governing
There has been a lot of discussion on the demarcation and power of the possible provinces of our nation. But, very little has been discussed about the role of Village Development Committees (VDC). Yet, empowering the VDCs might hold the key to empowering Nepalis, revolutionizing local development and strengthening our nascent democracy.
Democracy does not mature overnight. Like every other craft, it requires continuous practice. And, just like in the mastering of any craft, mastering of democracy will require resilience. There will be moments where the quest for democracy may seem frustrating and unworthy. And we may be tempted to revert to old ways and resist the process of decentralization. We need to avoid such temptations.
The concept of a mini-government at the local level makes a lot of economic sense as well. This could revolutionize local development. The first step in this direction would be to let the locally-elected representative of the VDC get heavily involved in decision making. For example, the locally-appointed representative should be made responsible for the appointment of health assistants, setting their pay scale and having the authority fire them. Locally-appointed representative should allocate the budget for primary schools, secondary schools and the pay scale for teachers. They should be entrusted with setting rules and implementing the rules for appointing, firing, rewarding and punishing their appointees such as teachers and healthcare workers.
If such rules exist, the problem of absenteeism in education and the healthcare sector will be checked to a large extent. The way things are currently, if a health assistant in a district doesn’t show up to work, patients put the blame on Kathmandu. Wouldn’t it be much more efficient, if the blame could be put on say Ram Prasad Ghale who lives 20 minutes away from the patient’s house and who is the elected representative responsible for hiring and firing health workers?
Entrusting powers to allocate and manage resources to VDC will not be enough, however. The power to raise resources should also be entrusted to them. For example, part of the taxes collected in a VDC should stay in the VDC by law. For example, if one VDC has a sugar factory that pays one million in taxes to the government in Kathmandu, it should pay 100,000 in tax to the VDC as well. This gives incentive to VDCs to develop and maintain an atmosphere that is conducive to the opening and prospering of businesses. The VDC should also be allowed to issue bonds to raise money from the public.
This bottom-up approach will give more control to Nepalis over their destiny. It will minimize dissent and increase social responsibility. For centuries, we have practiced the top-down approach in government that is based on the patronizing (and somewhat insulting) premise that Nepalis living outside Kathmandu are illiterate and are incapable of managing their own business, hence they need to be taken care of by the literate policy makers sitting in Kathmandu. This mode of governance has developed a mindset where Nepalis look upon Singha Durbar as their patron from whom to extract resources and to whom blame is ascribed when things go wrong. This mindset is problematic and has to change. The bottom-up approach of governance will achieve just that.
(Writer is Assistant Professor of Economics and Finance at Texas A&M International University in Texas, US.
Bottom up governing
Dr. Anand Jha
There has been a lot of discussion on the demarcation and power of the possible provinces of our nation. But, very little has been discussed about the role of Village Development Committees (VDC). Yet, empowering the VDCs might hold the key to empowering Nepalis, revolutionizing local development and strengthening our nascent democracy.
Democracy does not mature overnight. Like every other craft, it requires continuous practice. And, just like in the mastering of any craft, mastering of democracy will require resilience. There will be moments where the quest for democracy may seem frustrating and unworthy. And we may be tempted to revert to old ways and resist the process of decentralization. We need to avoid such temptations.
The power to raise resources should also be entrusted to
the VDCs.
Instead, we need to focus on devising a system that requires
greater practice of democratic norms. The smartest way to achieve this is to
have a mini-government (sort of a replica of that in Kathmandu) to manage basic
necessities such as healthcare, education, security and justice in each village,
town and city. This will engage Nepalis in building their communities through
democratic practices everyday, honing their skills as negotiators and solvers of
collective problems. This will make Nepalis more familiar with the value of
democracy while knowing the limitations, frustrations and sometimes
disappointments that come with it. Overall, this will accelerate the development
of a democratic mindset and the zeal to promote democracy—and put our country on
the highway to democratic maturity.The concept of a mini-government at the local level makes a lot of economic sense as well. This could revolutionize local development. The first step in this direction would be to let the locally-elected representative of the VDC get heavily involved in decision making. For example, the locally-appointed representative should be made responsible for the appointment of health assistants, setting their pay scale and having the authority fire them. Locally-appointed representative should allocate the budget for primary schools, secondary schools and the pay scale for teachers. They should be entrusted with setting rules and implementing the rules for appointing, firing, rewarding and punishing their appointees such as teachers and healthcare workers.
If such rules exist, the problem of absenteeism in education and the healthcare sector will be checked to a large extent. The way things are currently, if a health assistant in a district doesn’t show up to work, patients put the blame on Kathmandu. Wouldn’t it be much more efficient, if the blame could be put on say Ram Prasad Ghale who lives 20 minutes away from the patient’s house and who is the elected representative responsible for hiring and firing health workers?
Entrusting powers to allocate and manage resources to VDC will not be enough, however. The power to raise resources should also be entrusted to them. For example, part of the taxes collected in a VDC should stay in the VDC by law. For example, if one VDC has a sugar factory that pays one million in taxes to the government in Kathmandu, it should pay 100,000 in tax to the VDC as well. This gives incentive to VDCs to develop and maintain an atmosphere that is conducive to the opening and prospering of businesses. The VDC should also be allowed to issue bonds to raise money from the public.
This bottom-up approach will give more control to Nepalis over their destiny. It will minimize dissent and increase social responsibility. For centuries, we have practiced the top-down approach in government that is based on the patronizing (and somewhat insulting) premise that Nepalis living outside Kathmandu are illiterate and are incapable of managing their own business, hence they need to be taken care of by the literate policy makers sitting in Kathmandu. This mode of governance has developed a mindset where Nepalis look upon Singha Durbar as their patron from whom to extract resources and to whom blame is ascribed when things go wrong. This mindset is problematic and has to change. The bottom-up approach of governance will achieve just that.
(Writer is Assistant Professor of Economics and Finance at Texas A&M International University in Texas, US.
