“Is the federalism of Nepal in danger due to concurrent and ambiguous jurisdiction of federal, provincial, and local levels?”, is a prominent question that arises when anyone talks about threat to federalism and its future in Nepal. Whenever disputes arise between the 3 tiers of government, the same question gets surfaced, followed by different types of analysis with uncertain opinions and claims.

When the citizens realized that the restructuring of the state should be done to decentralize power from the center, federalism was selected as a way to abandon the centralized form of government. Nepal has adopted federalism from the second amendment of the Interim Constitution of Nepal, 2063 and the structure for it was given by the Constitution of Nepal, 2072. According to Article 56 and 57 of the Constitution of Nepal, there shall be three main tiers of the government as federal, provincial, and local, and power and authority shall be used by them pursuant to the constitution. Decentralization being one of the main targets of federalism, we can observe the transfer of power from the capital to each province and from each province to each local body, but at the same time , we are also well informed about the conflicts regarding the common jurisdiction of these tiers of government.

The constitution itself has created obscurity with Schedule 7 and 9, creating concurrent power of federation and state, and of federation, state and local level respectively. Either when Province-2 of Nepal had filed a writ against federal government demanding an Interim Order against federal government’s move of merging Sagarnath Forestry Development Project into Timber Corporation of Nepal or when the provincial governments had opposed Public Service Commission’s action of hiring staffs for village bodies and municipalities claiming that the matters related to employees and offices of the village bodies and municipalities should be dealt with as per provincial laws, the root of the disputes was the same uncertain distribution of power to the different tiers.

Recently, Kanchanrup municipality of Saptari had collected a name list for distributing relief packages to the COVID-19 and to the lockdown sufferers as per the directives of the federal government. At the same time, the provincial government sent another directive order to collect an all-party name list. This placed the municipality in dilemma as to whether to follow the instructions of the federal government or of the provincial government. Such obscurity of policies prevents the three layers of government from taking effective actions in controlling the pandemic of COVID-19.

Due to delay in the formulation of laws by Federal Parliament to maintain coordination among the federation, provinces, and local levels, they fail to maintain a healthy relationship among each other. Provinces claim that the federation wants to control them and wants everything to work under their orders, and the same goes at the local level, whereas the federation claims that it is giving instructions considering the fact that the country is still transitioning into the federal system and that there will be no place for such actions, once federalism is fully institutionalized. Whatever may be the reason for the disputes, they must be resolved on time either through Inter-Provincial Council or through any other legal means to robust federalism. Constitutional expert, Buddhi Karki in an event of YFD (Youth in Federal Discourse) also said, “Constitution has given the basic framework to the federalism. Although there are some disputed issues, we can solve them with the way given by the constitution itself because it is a federal constitution or we can clear up by making necessary laws during the process of federalization.”

It is disheartening that when it comes to exercising of power, every level assert it under their authority, but when it comes to the fulfillment of duty and responsibility, they escape using “not under our jurisdiction” as an excuse. The general public is also confused about the power and authority of each layers and is therefore unable to report their problems to the concerned authority, creating frustration among the citizens towards the government and whole federalism. The disagreements among the different layers of government are also escalating a base for the third parties, who are intended to farm illusion among the citizens and force Nepal and Nepalese politics towards instability for their advantage, to relish. The voices being raised to alter the form of government is definitely harmful for the transitioning federalism of Nepal.

The main objectives of federalism were to decentralize power, to ensure equal representation, to eliminate any form of discrimination, to establish perpetual democracy, and political and fiscal restructuring. Although we are slow, we are steadily moving towards these targeted objectives. Firstly, the disputed jurisdiction must be made crystal clear. Then, the citizens should be taught about the federalism and its benefits, equal participation must be ensured through best possible means, any form of discrimination must be controlled to strengthen the feeling of unity among the citizens, the available means and resources must be distributed proportionally , and corruption of power and authority must be checked. Finally, we all must be optimistic and have faith on democracy and federalism to turn our dream of ‘New Nepal’ into a reality.