By Asmit Kuikel and Rajendra Sharma
The entire globe is suffering from the present the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic is disrupting society, economy and politics in all parts of the world. Nepal is not an exception. To counter outburst of the coronavirus the government has adopted measures recommended by WHO and other line agencies. To control the situation the government has declared lockdown as a tool. The federal council of ministers adopted the decision in late March to lockdown the Himalayan nation internationally. The lockdown is still continuing and it has been almost four weeks.
During the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, it has been witnessed that the structures at the local level should function effectively to curb the outburst of the virus and also to deliver service.
In Nepal the COVID-19 infection was found in foreign returnees. Out of them, those returnees from India have alarmed the situation as the government has no exact figure on the number of the Nepalis returned from there. As there is no record keeping system on those migrants from India, they have become main source of spreading the coronavirus outbreak in the society, from which Nepal has entered into the third phase of spreading the disease.
Now, to prevent and control outbreak of the disease, the federal government should mobilize the local level governments to collect the data of those peoples who recently arrived from India, keeping them in quarantine and conducting throat swab test before they mix-up in the family and society as well. Besides, the federal government should supply adequate medical equipment such as PPE and medical staffers to the local bodies. The local bodies, on the other hand, should provide allowances to the health workers, security personnel and other frontline responders coordinating with provincial and federal government. The local governments should initiate awareness campaign, distribute relief support to the needy people and encourage them to cooperate during this pandemic at village and community levels.
As an executive body at the doorstep of the people, the local governments must realize their responsibilities for their people — especially to those who are in desperate needs of the government support.
Local bodies, by mobilizing all the ward chairs and ward members, should collect data of those labour class people, senior citizens, single women, conflict victims, children, women and other people from disadvantage group and give proper attention on them. Beside the fund provided by the federal and province governments the local bodies should also encourage local people to donate voluntarily, and mobilize the local youth in all activities.
The municipal police force or volunteers recruited by the local bodies must work subordinate to the Nepal Police. This force along with NP, APF, NA, NID can be used in regular monitoring of the locals market, updating in and out figures of demography and massive engage in the awareness campaign as well as to tighten the lockdown.
The cases of black marketing, fraudulent, fake crisis and corruption are common during such crisis. To curb such practices, continuous market observation is important. Likewise, local communities should remain alert against misuse of authority by local representatives.
The elected representatives, local political parties, civil society representatives, teachers, professors, youth force, enforcement agencies, Red Cross, NGOs, INGOs and other humanitarian agencies have to work in cooperation and under the coordination of the local governments to maintain normalcy in their respective areas. Effectiveness of the local bodies is apex during the lockdown and post COVID-19. Local bodies have to realize their responsibilities and function in line with the spirit of the federal constitution.
During such a crisis period the local governments and the people’s representatives should be able to perform their responsibility properly. Taking lessons from the past experiences, local bodies need to formulate short term as well as long term plans and policies to counter any kind of upcoming challenges easily.
(Kuikel is a MPhil student in the Kathmandu University and lecturer in the Kantipur Campus and Sharma is associated with the National College)
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