Kathmandu, June 14
What if the government itself flouts the law of the land? In such a case, how can it make citizens obey the law?
There’s a law, which states that all concerned should get blueprints approved before constructing buildings within municipalities. Interestingly, the government itself has trampled on this law.
A vivid example of this is the Office of the Prime Minister on Singhadurbar premises. Onlinekhabar has found Singhadurbar Reconstruction Secretariat did not get its map approved before constructing the OPM building citing hassles accompanying the map approval process. But it’s not the only office building constructed without Kathmandu Metropolitan City’s consent. Around half a dozen such buildings have been constructed at Singhadurbar without map approval.
KMC and reconstruction secretariat have been engaged in a dispute on the matter. “In view of hassles in the process of building map approval, we constructed the office building without getting the map approved,” Ram Prasad Belbase, officer at the secretariat said, adding: KMC has not written to us to get the map approved.
Apart from the PMO, Foreign Ministry, Education Ministry, Women and Children Ministry, Central Service Centre and under-construction National Vigilence Centre have not had their maps approved. The secretariat claims there’s no need to get the maps approved from KMC as the Council of Ministers has already approved the Singhadurbar master plan. Besides, the secretariat has its own engineers, so it does not need to get the maps approved from KMC, the secretariat claims.
Asked whether it means engineers won’t have to get maps approved before constructing houses, Belbase said: We are not authorised to answer this question. With the master plan already approved, we did not bother to seek KMC approval for the maps. Vigilence centre has also mandated us to move ahead by adhering to the master plan.
KMC, on its part, said government bodies should abide by existing rules. “Government bodies themselves have started building construction without getting maps approved from competent authorities. This is a serious breach of law. The law does not allow construction of buildings without getting map approval,” KMC’s executive officer Rudra Singh Tamang said.
Tamang said: The government authorities are pointing that we did not tell them to get the maps approved before construction work. The law has it that the state should grant citizenship to eligible peoples once they turn 16. Going by the authorities’ logic, is the government supposed to write to every eligible individual to come and get their citizenship certificates?
With government bodies themselves breaching the law, it will be harder for us to convince citizens to obey the law, says Tamang.
