Kathmandu May 09, 2016:Â The government on Sunday unveiled its policies and programs, aiming to hold elections to local government bodies within this year.
Nepal has not held local elections since 1999, and cartels of unelected politicians and authorities have been deciding on billions worth of budgetary resources by themselves after the Sher Bahadur Deuba government dissolved municipality and village councils without new local elections in 2002.
This is the first time in the last two decades that a government has included local elections in its policies and programs.
Although Nepal is now redrawing boundaries of districts, municipalities and villages within the new federal structure, the new constitution allows local elections before federal provinces are set up.
The policies and programs unveiled by President Bidya Bhandari in Parliament include populist programs like interest-free loans for the educated youth, soft loan for science students and free education for children of Dalit and marginalised people.
The government also unveiled its ambitious plan to end power outage in one year’s and produce 10,000 MW electricity within the next 10 years.
Other policies and programs presented by the government include constructions of civil service hospitals and stadiums in all federal provinces. Aiming to bring in one million tourists in 2018, the government also said the Nepali year 2073 will be celebrated as a year of internal tourists.
