Federal model - II By Dr Surendra R Devkota and Dr Shiva Gautam According to 2003/04 Household Survey - the bottom 40 percent of population accounts for only 9 percent of total consumption where as the top 20 percent gobbles up nearly 53 percent. Hence, we need a major shift in our politico-economic development model. "I have only one ambition. I belonged to a lower middle class family but I got two square meals a day, I had a small farm which gave me my basic requirements, and I had a few cows. I had my children studying in schools here…. So my ambition was- and I said I needed 15 years for this, and I would retire after that- to put the poorest family economically at par with my family. Not big roads, palatial buildings and all that, but the poorest family must get the same economic status as mine had. Our task should be to build villages, eradicate poverty there, eradicate ignorance there, provide medical care, education etc." The above account, according to Amrit Bazar Patrika, August 8 1982, was B P Koirala 's response to Mohan Shumsher Rana's question to him, "Well, now that you are the Prime Minister, what is your ambition? What do you want to do?" And today, after so many years our monumental and multidimensional task remains virtually the same; to build villages, eradicate poverty there, eradicate ignorance there, and provide medical care, education and jobs culminating in the overall uplift of the poor people. The goal of restructuring of the new Nepal is both to enhance and sustain the local and regional socioeconomic conditions with active people's participation so that resources will be utilized efficiently as well as equitably. In our previous model, published in The Kathmandu Post, July 26, 2006, we have outlined three regions - Koshi, Gandaki, and Karnali based on three river basins. This will be our second in series of the federal model. It may also be effective and efficient to establish Kathmandu Valley as a special region by integrating all existing municipalities and villages in the valley. The Valley needs to be considered a special politico-administrative unit so that it will enjoy its politico-economic rights, and uniformity in planning and policy making, and implementation in order to build a sustainable city in the long term. The main thrusts of the restructuring are to integrate regional and local resources so that they would complement each other in planning and policy making and people won't worry for the basic needs. One might argue for many regional governments, but the key factor is availability of capitals in the region that includes not only economic but human, ecological and others as well. While restructuring, local government (LG) will get a primary focus because there will be a huge challenge on making a LG self-sustaining where people will enjoy their politico-economic rights, utilize the resources, and have an accountable system. If we assume that about 10 thousand households could be a cut off point for one LG, based on 2001 Census, there will be about 400 LGs compared to current four thousand village development committees. The regional distribution of LG's will be like 150 in Koshi region, 130 in Gandaki region, and 100 in Karnali region, and the Valley will decide itself how many would be appropriate. The minimum duty and responsibility of each LG would be to satisfy the basic needs of local people. Further, LG will have a complete authority for its socio-economic development, conservation, taxation and investment. It will have its own bureaucracy including technical manpower. The next strategy is to ensure maximum participation of local people in LG's planning, policy making and implementation. Hence each LG will be further divided into subunits depending upon the local geography and demography. People will directly elect the Head and Council members of each LG. A proportional representation system (in any level of government) of election with nine members from a defined constituency will guarantee 90 percent or more representation (see an article by one of the authors published in Nepalnews.com July 19, 2006). So any community with 10 or more percent population could be represented through election. Municipality will be recognized as a local government but it is up to the regional council to define the criteria for a municipality. Meanwhile, it is up to the local people to decide whether they would like to have a municipality or not. Every head of the LG will be the member of the regional council. Regional chief will be elected by the people, who will be a politico-economic leader of the region. S/he will have a team of a small regional government from the council members, and will have a team of experts to plan and execute the duties and responsibilities. As mentioned above, a certain system of election will ensure proper representation from different communities living within an administrative area.. Besides, the regional chief will have an exclusive authority to appoint at least 25 percent of council members from socio-economically deprived communities. This sort of structure ensures the compatibility of resources integration and mobilization in the region. An economic formula such as one Rupee of revenue generation could be shared like 50 percent by LG, 25 percent by regional government, and 25 by the central government could be developed by the regional council. Hence regional council could make Rules and Regulation based on the Acts developed by the central legislative body. As we discussed in our first part, the central government will be bicameral. It is highly imperative to develop such a mechanism so that each LG will have at least one representative either in Lower or in Upper house. In a few cases where household numbers are below ten thousands, there could be two representations from each LG. Their main duties and responsibilities, include taking care of national interest by formulating proper Acts for the overall development. The other crucial factor in restructuring and empowering is to remolding the existing public administration. It may be a good idea to limit the size of the Ministries by retaining only 25 percent of the total workforces and to expand the existing Departments by 25 percent of workforces in each regional government. While LGs will have their own bureaucracy including police to serve the people, they will also need some offices of the central bureaucracy like passport, post office, tax/revenue collection, security, auditor, and monitoring and supervision. Nepal should learn a wide variety of democracies in order to materialize their zeal for loktantra. In the past we also experienced different models like indirect voting during the Panchayat system, and a direct representative system (liberal democracy) after 1990. The former turned out an oligarchy system while the latter ended as an elitist democracy. Since the socio-political system is a dynamic process, people would like to explore other forms of democracy like participatory or grassroots democracy so that they will find their say in decision-making process - inclusive democracy for social sustainability. (Feedbacks are welcome, and please send your comments at either srdevkota@gmail.com or shivagau@gmail.com)