Mayor of Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) Balen Shah has said that he has stopped collecting garbage from the Singha Durbar due to irresponsibility and negligence of the federal government to coordinate with the KMC.
Taking to Facebook a day after he unilaterally stopped collection of garbage from the Singha Durbar, Shah has blamed the federal government for lack of coordination with the local government despite his continuous efforts for nine months. “The conclusion until now of the disregard, irresponsibility and negligence toward the repeated efforts made is the decision to not collect garbage from the Singha Durbar,” Shah has posted.
He has urged the federal government to untie the knots for resolution of the local problems at the local level.
“How can we say that the government that does not listen to the another government and people’s representatives, and understand and prioritize (their problems) accept the existence of one another? How can we say that the federal government is for strengthening federalism?”
He has also listed how the efforts he has made to coordinate with 14 different federal ministries to resolve problems including management of squatters, traffic lights, footpath encroached by diplomatic missions, hospitals, expansion of the Ring Road, street lights and others have failed to yield results due to apathy of the federal government.
Mayor Shah had taken to the Facebook on Saturday even to announce stopping collection of garbage from the Singha Durbar taking everyone including Deputy Mayor Sunita Dangol by surprise.
Garbage was not collected even from the residence of the president, the prime minister and the federal ministers on Sunday.
Shah did not discuss the issue with other elected representatives or KMC staffers and took the decision unilaterally. Setopati talked with KMC staffers and elected representatives including ward chairs and deputy mayor and all of them said that they also knew about the issue only after reading Shah’s Facebook post.
An organization named Paribartan Nepal collects garbage from the Singha Durbar and Manager of the organization Mitra Ghimire told Setopati that Mayor Shah instructed the body to not collect garbage.
