Lack of ward secretaries hampers service delivery in local levels

By Our Correspondent Gorkha, June 26: Nearly half of 94 wards in Gorkha district do not have a ward secretary and they have to make to do with secretaries from other wards or even health post staff.

Currently a single secretary in the district is looking after three ward offices. Chumanuwri Rural Municipality in north Gorkha has four secretaries for seven wards. Chief administrative officer (CAO) of Chumanuwri, Bhimsen Shrestha, informed that Bashu Dev Oli, Bed Prakash Dhakal, Ganesh Bhakta Tripathi are looking after two wards each while Bala Ram Pathak a single ward. Ward secretaries complained that it was hard to work as it takes more than a day to travel from one ward to another in the remote rural municipality.

Dharche Rural Municipality has only two ward secretaries where one secretary looks after two wards while the other looks after four wards. Due to busy schedule of the ward secretaries, even the employees of health post are given the responsibility to look after the ward offices. In-charge of Laprak Health Post said newly appointed secretaries have not arrived yet and that he was doing the work of the ward secretaries after the municipality entrusted him with the responsibility.

“Aarughat Rural Municipality has four ward secretaries where Dhruba Parajuli and Bikram Shrestha look after three wards each while Yagya Raj Kandel and Sundar Bahadur Baniya look after two wards each,” informed its CAO Ekdev Khanal. Ward chairman Raju Gurung said it was hard to provide services for lack of enough ward secretaries. Ward chair Dhruba Parajuli said that it was difficult to work as one person had to look after three wards.

Wards 1 and 2 of Barpak Sulikot Rural Municipality have only one ward secretary and all other wards are looked after by thematic divisional staffs.

Bhimsen Thapa Rural Municipality has four ward secretaries who look after two wards each.

CAO Chitra Bahadur Adhikari said that they have requested for a ward secretary to the Public Service Commission but this is yet to be translated into reality. He added that a majority of those who opted for adjustment in time of their appointment stayed back in city areas.

Siranchowk Rural Municipality has three ward secretaries who have to look after two wards each. Wards 6 and 7 are looked after by employees of the health posts. Gandaki Rural Municipality has eight wards and there are six secretaries, with the two wards taken care for by thematic divisional staffs of the municipalities.

CAO Babu Ram Karakheti said that two posts of ward secretaries were vacant in Palungtar Municipality. Wards 6 and 7 are being looked after by a single secretary while wards 1 and 10 by staffs appointed on contract and all the other wards have their own ward secretaries. Gorkha Municipality and Sahid Lakhan Rural Municipality informed that they had no problem about ward secretaries.

The services of ward office in all local levels of the district are being hampered in lack of ward secretaries. The ward secretaries complained that they were burdened with excess work because they had to look after more than two or three wards at the same time. Chairpersons of various municipalities said that work efficiency of the municipalities had been affected as they had to arrange staffs from other sectors.