Although Chaubise Rural Municipality in Dhankuta district is allocated 24 staffers in its office, only three positions—administrative officer, accountant and computer operator—are at work.

Most of the sections—including agriculture, women development, education and livestock services of the rural municipality—have been padlocked due to a shortage of employees. Locals have been facing difficulties as the daily administrative works and development activities have been affected for a long time. Of the eight wards, only one ward has a ward secretary.

Because of this shortage of employees, Shashi Rai, an administrative officer of the Chaubise Rural Municipality, says they have been facing a lot of pressure. “Sometimes we even work until 2 am due to the work pressure. Currently, we only have an accountant, a computer operator and a non-gazetted second class officer working in the office,” says Rai.

This shortage of employees in the local unit has deprived service seekers of timely services. Khajindra Rai, chairman of the rural municipality, said that because of a lack of employees, assistants and social campaigners are providing services to the service seekers. He said that he has repeatedly urged the authorities concerned to deploy employees but to no avail.

The situation of Shahidbhumi Rural Municipality is also similar. Manoj Rai, chairman of the rural municipality, said that there are no ward secretaries in the rural municipality. According to him, a total of eight positions of ward secretaries is vacant in the local unit.

As per the existing legal provisions, at least six posts of government employees including that of a section officer have been allotted in each ward. However, the majority of wards in the local units are vacant in Dhankuta.

Tanka Bahadur Chuwan, chief of the District Coordination Committee (DCC), admitted that people are deprived of government services due to the shortage of employees. “Presently, the DCC has been compelled to run with three employees,” said Dhital, adding that they are facing difficulties due to shortage of technicians, including engineer, overseer, section officer and non-gazetted second class among others.

Number of employees increased around three-fold in Dhankuta MunicipalityIn contrast, Dhankuta Municipality is overwhelmed by staffers. The municipality has 140 employees against the allotted 49 positions.

Ram Bahadur Thapa, the chief administrative officer of the municipality, said that the number of employees has increased around three-fold in his office. Thapa said, “That’s why some of the employees are working from the canteen area.”