It’s been few months since you have been elected as the Mayor of Dhangadhi Sub Metropolitan City. How has been your experience so far?  

I came from the private sector and I have always been action oriented. I joined politics to bring change in our society and our country and that is what I plan to do in the next five years. My agenda has always been clear: to address the many public issues that have been plaguing people’s lives. And I want to focus on addressing issues of education, health, waste management, infrastructure development, etc. So far, I have received good support from the people as well.

What are some of the successes?

Among the issues I have focused on, the one I have prioritized the most has been public health. A majority of Nepal’s, including Dhangadi, population live in poverty, with many farming for a living and earning minimal income. They have no savings to rely on, and if there is any kind of emergency, many are in deep trouble. The health programs I have introduced are designed for such people, especially women. Till date, I am most proud of the work I have done in the health sector.

Under the health program, we provide free check-ups by physicians and gynecologists at the local level. We also provide free ultrasounds, ECGs, medicines, and an ambulance service. We are also running our ‘Ama Bachau Abhiyan’ (Save Mothers Campaign), which is dedicated to saving the lives of pregnant women in 19 wards across the city. Along with that, there’s also the ‘Jestha Nagarik Abhiyan’ which is a campaign that provides free health services to elderly citizens.

We have also banned plastic use in Dhangadi, after a four-month campaign, and are currently training people at the community level to spread awareness on the cons of using plastic.

We have also been committed to issues of sanitation, particularly in schools, and have used the medium of social media, especially TikTok, to spread awareness by organizing various competitions in schools and offering cash prizes.

To make any change in a community, we need the community to work together and that’s what we’re doing.

How do you garner support to get things done?

There is a system in place to run the government, but sometimes this system does not work. It takes a lot of energy and political will to make the system work in your favor, for you to achieve the things you want to achieve.

To make sure my government gets things done, I make sure we have management group meetings at 10 am every day. At these meetings, all department heads assemble, review the work that was done the day before and plan for today. I have also regularly been having monthly meetings with the wards to discuss progress and issues that surface.  

What were the challenges?

It is no surprise that one of the biggest challenges is corruption. It is often difficult to overcome this challenge. Yet, we have made an effort to overcome this issue. I have reached a conclusion that only when the source is clean, you are going to get clean water from your tap.

In our office, we have made everything transparent. When I joined office, I make public a WhatsApp number where people can directly reach out to the office of the mayor if they witness any acts of corruption. I think the app has been very helpful in instilling the idea in people’s minds that our government aims to be as transparent as possible with what we are doing.

We have made everything transparent. We do tenders for all our works. We don’t allow corruption by manipulating quotations. We publish everything, including DPRs. I learned that DPRs had been abused to fill pockets of a handful people. Today, we say give us quality reports. We do everything based on merit, including the hiring. If the right person gets right subsidy, people don’t get frustrated. So, I say whatever the system you bring, unless the leaders are clean and honest, it is not going to change.

You said corruption is the biggest challenge. How have you been fighting it?

Our approach to addressing corruption is slightly different. I make it a point to arrive at the office 15 minutes before 10:00, where we have a daily management group meeting. The meeting is attended by all department chiefs and relevant staff, and during the session, we review the work completed the previous day and discuss the plans for the day ahead.

Additionally, we hold monthly meetings to review progress. On the third day of every month, we meet with all ward secretaries, who present their progress report for the previous month. On the fourth day, we meet with the heads and staff of the education and health departments, who present their respective progress reports, including video footage and future projections. We also have separate monthly meetings with social mobilizers, who are involved in waste management.

On the fifth day of the month, we dedicate a meeting to our plans and projects, where each individual engineer presents a progress report on their project and commits to their next month's targets. Initially, it was challenging for engineers to commit to a fixed target, but with time, everyone is now presenting their targets for the next month.

Our approach has helped bring all staff members together, improve transparency and accountability, and demonstrate results. My goal is to give back to my country, as everything I have accomplished so far has been for myself and my family. But for the next five years, I have committed myself entirely to my country. We cannot develop our nation unless we have a selfless approach.

Development requires a lot of coordination and collaboration with several actors, which seems to be a challenge. How are you collaborating with other actors?

Indeed. See today, I am visiting the UN Office here in Kathmandu. Why? I am here for coordination. As I said before, one of my priority sectors is waste management, something that has never been prioritized elsewhere. I want to make Dhangadi a model city, a city that the rest of the 76 local governments will look up to. I came here at the UN with a plan, looking for support.

Your observation on the ongoing collaboration with UNDP and future plans.

We have worked together on a grievance handing system, an app, and that was a fruitful experience. It was something that I really wanted to do as well and it was great to work with UNDP. The app helps us track unaccountability and any grievances the public may have, and we can immediately address the public’s concerns. We also invite the grievance handling team to our regular monthly meetings. They report on the grievances received from the public, and we take immediate action to resolve them. By doing so, the app has really helped us increase our efficiency.

The UNDP drafted a report and shared it with us in a presentation, which really opened up our eyes. It was a report by SUPER (Strengthening Urban Preparedness, Earthquake Preparedness and Response Project implemented by UNDP, UNICEF, UN Women and funded by European Union in Nepal) regarding the safety of buildings. A disaster doesn’t announce itself before coming. It comes when it comes, and the only thing we can do is be prepared for it. The UNDP report really made us think about strengthening our preparedness towards earthquakes.

The report has assessed which areas/locations are dangerous and which are not. We are currently assessing the quality of old buildings in many parts of Dhangadi as a part of the SUPER project. We have already brought down some of the houses that were deemed dangerous.

With the UNDP, I hope to work in areas of our interests and priorities and they include sanitation and waste management. By sanitation, I mean drinking water supply and community level toilets which could be developed on a co-funding modality so that the ownership is with the municipality and the projects are sustainable. I have also observed similar collaboration in Hyderabad, India where they have built sanitation facilities in slum areas. We must prioritize sustainable projects that empower local governments to take full ownership of them, thereby making the most of the resources provided by the UN.