Nepali Congress (NC) General Secretary and House of Representatives (HoR) member from Kathmandu-4 Gagan Thapa has urged Prime Minister (PM) Pushpa Kamal Dahal to hold dialogue with Mayor of Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) Balen Shah on the issue of stopping collection of garbage from the Singha Durbar.
Taking to Facebook a day after he unilaterally stopped collection of garbage from the Singha Durbar, Shah on Monday 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 posted.
Speaking during the HoR meeting on Monday ruling lawmaker Thapa conceded that there seemed to be lack of coordination among the federal, provincial and local governments. “Clash between the Bag Durbar (the office of KMC) and the Singha Durbar has been seen. We can debate later about the style and language used by a people’s representative to get the demands fulfilled complaining about lack of hearing. But let there be immediate dialogue with KMC to resolve the problem seen now,” Thapa stated.
He added that the lack of coordination is not only with KMC and pointed that chiefs of many local bodies were currently making rounds of the Singha Durbar seeking or stopping transfer of local body staffers. “The federal government should be proactive for coordination among the three levels of government. But that has not happened.”
Mayor Shah listed how the efforts he 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 had failed to yield results due to apathy of the federal government.
He 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.
