Local governments of Surkhet and Achham have spent over Rs 15 million on flawed village profiles. Concerned people in the village authority do not hesitate to prepare and use such faulty details.
Laxmi Bhandari : Centre for Investigative Journalism-Nepal
The landscape of Dhungeshwor Rural Municipality of Dailekh district is as follows: Bheri River to the south, Jhuprokhola to the west, Chigad Rural Municipality to the North and Khahare Khola to the East.
The geographical features as mentioned in the village profile – 2019 published by Dhungeshwor Rural Municipality neither match with the geography nor do they exist as such on its periphery.
These features lie on the periphery of Lekbeshi Municipality of Surkhet district. The particulars as mentioned in the 110-long page village profile are akin to the geographical features of Lekbeshi Municipality. Most of the details and statistics related to health and education do not exist with those of Dhungeshwor Rural Municipality.
Faulty galore
Nepali Brihat Sabdakosh (Nepali Comprehensive Dictionary) has defined the term ‘Parshwachitra’ as mentioned in the village profile of the rural municipality as ‘landscape’. But the geographical details of the rural municipality do not show such ‘landscape’.
What led to this mistake? The trend of preparing the village profile of a place by tweaking few particulars of one the already sketched village profile caused this blunder. It appears that the sketch of Dhungeshwor Rural Municipality had been done on the computer copy of Lekbeshi Municipality by just changing its title.
Most of the statistics are incorrect since they were copied and pasted as they were.
Blunders in the village profile of Lekbeshi cross the limit to the extent that Birendranagar, the capital of Karnali Province, has been stated as the municipality while Bheriganga and Gurbhakot municipalities have been mentioned as rural municipalities in it.
Chief of Dhungeshwor Rural Municipality Nagendra Bahadur Malla admits that the village profile contains several errors. However, Malla claimed that the mistakes occurred due to misplacement of details while printing, not in the process of preparing the village profile. “We immediately rectified the errors,” said Malla, admitting, “The mistakes occurred due to our negligence.”
A three-member panel led by Ward Chairperson Raju Kumar Khatri had been formed to prepare the village profile in which another ward chairperson Bam Bahadur BC and executive body member Shanti Oli were members. The committee, however, is not ready to admit its mistake.
The member of the executive body of the rural municipality and the profile development committee Bam Bahadur BC maintained that the errors occurred in the course of printing. “The details of village profile altered while printing,” said BC.
Echoing BC’s idea, coordinator of the Village Profile Publication Committee, Khatri said, “Some details were found to have been copied from Lekbeshi Municipality of Surkhet. Now we rectified it on the website of the rural municipality.”
Khatri and his panel are responsible for the job of copying and pasting the profile. Though he said to have rectified the mistake on the website of the rural municipality, incorrect details still exist there.
It clearly shows the negligence on the part of the executive officer and the committee that collected profile details. The errors cross the limit to the extent that Surkhet district has been written instead of Dailekh district in the acknowledgment as well as in the facilitation of chief and deputy chief of the rural municipality. Rs 500,000 has been spent on the preparation of the village profile.
Achham has a no different story
Similar kind of errors has been found in Mallekh Rural Municipality of Accham district in the Far-western Province. Last year, Mallekh Rural Municipality had prepared its village profile for which Rs 1.5 million had been allocated. But the demographic details in its village profile are not incorrect. Thakuri has a majority in a ward but their number of Thakuri has been shown zero in the village profile. Similarly, 10 percent of Brahmans have been shown in this ward while not a single Brahmin does live in this ward.
Similarly, Brahmins do no live at ward no.1 in this municipality, but the details show their 50 percent presence in this ward.
No records show Thakuri community living in ward no. 8 of this rural municipality. Ten percent of Newari people have been mentioned referring to the national census 2011. Interestingly, the details do not show Dalit’s presence even though they live here.
Misleading information has been disseminated by placing Sanphebagar in both wards no. 1 and 2 at one place in the village profile.
The erroneous objective details had been prepared by the Technical Development Center led by Hiranya Bhattarai, who is also the coordinator of Nepal Communist Party in the rural municipality level.
The previous Rishidaha Development Committee was split in the course of restructuring the local units. There is not a single health post in ward no. 2. But the objective details show that there are three district health offices, three health posts and four private hospitals and a clinic.
Not only in ward no. 2, there are two district health offices in ward no. 6 and a 30-bed district health office in ward no. 7. The objective details show that there is one children’s hospital in ward no. 6 and one maternity hospital in ward no. 7.
The information is misleading on the one hand while the source of information is wrong on the other. The district education office has been mentioned as the source of information for health.
Only 69 households have been mentioned in the ward while there are more than 600 households. Two FM radio stations based in the district headquarters Mangalsen have also been placed in the ward no. 2
Ward no. 3 Chairperson Keshar Bahadur Shah said the objective details contain more errors than facts.
Mallek Rural Municipality is situated between Bajura district to the north and Bannigadhi Jayagadh Rural Municipality of Accham. In the objective details, as opposed to the fact, Bannigadhi Jayagadh Rural Municipality has been shown to the north of the rural municipality and Bajura to the south. A lot of information of ward no. 7 and 8 are missing.
Deputy Chief of the rural municipality Dhan Bahadur Shah said the work was done erroneously given the factual details, coven design, paper, and print quality.
Earlier, a local leader of Nepal Communist Party Bhattarai had prepared profiles of 75 Village Development Committees of Accham district. They are gathering dust now. Bhattarai had eulogized the then CPN-UML leaders in the background of the profile.
He, in the background, has stated that the Budhiganga Hydroelectricity Project having the capacity of 20 megawatts was being constructed in ward no. 4 and 8 of the rural municipality at the initiation of Bhim Rawal, Sher Bahadur Kunwar and Krishna Prasad Jaishi. Then District Development Committee member and CPN-UML leader Hemraj Shah said the detailed profile does not portray the rural municipality.
Bogus work
Society Awareness Center (SAC) in 2017 had prepared the profile of Lekbeshi Municipality of Surkhet for about Rs 200,000.
Page no. 6 of the profile describes Babiyachaur Bazaar as the main business hub in the historical background of the municipality. But Babiyachaur is in Panchapuri Municipality of Surkhet. Most of the details mentioned in the profile are akin to that of previous village development committees’.
Since there are many mistakes, Lekbeshi Municipality is making preparations to make a profile. Mayor Gagan Singh Sunar says, “We are preparing to make another profile since the existing one does not contain all the details.” According to Chief Administrative Officer Krishna Kharel of the municipality, Rs 3 million has been allocated for this purpose in the current fiscal year.
Simta Rural Municipality of Surkhet district has recently prepared a new profile at the investment of Rs 500,000. The rural municipality in 2017 had spent Rs 350,000 for the same job, said Kabindra KC, chief of the rural municipality.
“The old profile had been prepared before we were elected,” said KC, adding, “It did not prove effective anymore. So we upgraded the old profile by spending an additional Rs 200,000.
Similarly, Chaukune Rural Municipality has endorsed the profile prepared by the Asian Research and Training Institue (ARTI Nepal). Rural Municipality Chief Dhir Bahadur Shahi said the profile had been prepared before he got elected.
A non-governmental organization called Sundar Nepal had built profiles of Chingad Rural Municipality and Panchapuri Municipality. Mayor of Panchapuri Municipality Upendra Thapa said they tweaked minor details of the profile prepared by the organization. Around Rs 500,000 was spent on the preparation of the profile.
Chingad Rural Municipality also tweaked some details after verification of the profile, according to rural municipality Chief Deb Bahadur Chand.
Likewise, the profile of Barahatal Rural Municipality had been jointly prepared by ARTI Nepal and Creative Consultation Service said Chief Tej Bahadur Basnet. He added that the rural municipality had spent Rs 500,000 for the preparation of the profile.
Bheriganga Municipality had spent Rs 3.2 million on the preparation of its profile.
Deputy Mayor Renu Acharya said GIZ, an international non-governmental organization (INGOs), helped prepare the profile so the municipality had to invest only Rs 800,000 for it.
Likewise, the profile of Birendranagar Municipality has been prepared at the cost of Rs 3 million. The profile was prepared by an institute called Committed under the ‘Local Government Consolidation Project,’ according to Dipen Subedi, administrative officer at the municipality.
Subedi added the municipality invested Rs 1.2 million in it. “The profile has been prepared through the GPS,” he said, adding, “Our profile is excellent.” GPS or global positioning system provides exact information about landscape through the satellite.
Some of the details and designs of the profiles of local bodies have been directly copied and pasted. Despite some minor changes in the statistics, the felicitation of the mayor, deputy mayor and administrative officer have been found copied and directly pasted in the profile.
Most of the details in the profiles of the local levels that have been prepared by spending a significant amount of resources have been basically nothing more than a copy-paste. Except for a few data that have been changed, the rest content and profile of local level chiefs, deputy-chiefs, and administrative officers have been found to be copy-paste.
The greetings or foreword extended by chiefs, deputy-chiefs, and administrative officers of Simta, Barahatal, and Chaukune rural municipalities are ditto. The Gurbhakot municipality, too, has initiated the work of profiling through GPS technology. The deputy chief of the Gurbhakot Municipality Maina BiKa said the profile is being prepared at the cost of Rs 3 million.
The Surkhet-based Samaj Jagaran Kendra (Society Awareness Center) and Sundar Nepal had jointly prepared profiles of 22 rural municipalities under the Partnership Development Project some four years ago. The profiles have been prepared by bootlegging the details from one or the other profile.
Says Prakash Subedi, the then coordinator of the project, “The profiles prepared by us have experimented in different local levels and districts of Karnali Province and Sudhurpaschhim Province.” He adds, “I remember some people had come to me and taken profiles from me.”
Coordinator of the ‘Mutual Accountability Project’ managed by Sundar Nepal, an organization, Khim Regmi says the profiling, which should reflect the organization’s image, has been a mere formality.
“Most of the profiles have included the statistics of 2068 BS rather than the updated ones. Since the rural municipalities have piled up the old information, these profiles have not been effective,” Regmi said, adding, “These are irrelevant and useless.”
Former Dean of Mid-western University Pitamber Dhakal opines these profiles cannot be used while formulating plans and policies. “Profiling is not a big deal. The question is how it has been made,” he said adding, “Accuracy in the details plays a vital role, or else, it would be rubbish.”
Former President of local Good Governance Youth Club Hari Adhikari says it is reprehensible to see “similar greeting messages and content” in all profiles. “It seems that the entire work has been influenced by finance.”
