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NepalThe Administrative System
The panchayat system represented "democracy at
the
grassroots," and until April 1990 it included four
integrated
levels: local or village, district, zonal, and
national--the
Rashtriya Panchayat. Only the village panchayat was
directly
elected by the people. Championing panchayat rule
as a
political system, king Mahendra was able to tap into
nascent
Nepalese nationalism and also to outmaneuver the evolving
political
parties which had posed a challenge to the monarchy's
vested power.
The country was divided into fourteen zones and
seventy-five
districts in support of the complex hierarchy of the
panchayat system. The lowest unit of government was
the
gaun panchayat (village committee or council), of
which
there were 3,524. A locality with a population of more
than 10,000
persons was organized as a nagar panchayat (town
committee
or council). The number of nagar panchayat varied
from zone
to zone. Above the gaun panchayat and nagar
panchayat
was the district panchayat, of which there were
seventyfive . At the apex of the panchayat system was the
Rashtriya
Panchayat, which served as the unicameral national
legislature from
1962 until 1990.
The district panchayat had broad powers for
supervising
and coordinating the development programs of the village
and
carried out development projects through the district
development
boards and centers. Each of the seventy-five districts was
headed
by a chief district officer, who was an elected official,
responsible for maintaining law and order, and for
coordinating the
work of the field agencies of the various ministries.
The zonal panchayat was responsible for
implementing
development plans forwarded by the central government,
formulating
and executing programs of its own, and planning,
supervising, and
coordinating district development programs within its
jurisdiction.
Zonal commissioners exercised full administrative and
quasijudicial
powers. Each zone was administered by a zonal commissioner
and one
or two assistant zonal commissioners, all directly
appointed by the
king. Zones and districts were further regrouped into five
development zones in 1971-72, an administrative division
that
remained in effect in 1991.
A drive for political liberalization, which had begun
shortly
after the 1959 constitution was abrogated and all
political
activities were banned in 1960, did not climax until the
prodemocracy movement of 1990. At that point, ongoing
debilitating
interparty conflicts and halting demands for reforms of
the
political system ended, and national energy focused on a
movement
to achieve democratic rights. During the prodemocracy
movement,
some of the pancha (panchayat members)
loyalists even
were openly friendly with their former adversaries.
The interim government that was installed in April 1990
consisted of strange bedfellows, who, however, succeeded
in
steering the nation to its first free and fair elections
in thirtytwo years. In April 1990, the nagar panchayat was
renamed
nagar polika (municipal development committee), and
the
gaun panchayat became gaun bikas samiti, or
village
development committee. The Ministry of Local Development
posted an
officer to each district to help with the various programs
of the
development committees. In mid-1991, a Nepali Congress
Party
government was in power, and a conglomerate of communist
parties
was playing the role of constitutional opposition. At that
time,
there were 4,015 village development committees and
thirty-three
municipal development committees. Elections for the heads
of the
development committees were scheduled for June 1992.
Data as of September 1991
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