Nepal, Jan. 23 -- The Constitutional Council last Sunday recommended Balananda Poudel as chairman of the National Natural Resource and Fiscal Commission. There were also nominations for the chiefs of four other constitutional bodies. But, due to its nature and scope of work, also in view of international best practices, the Commission is the most critical among all these to effectively implement the federal polity in Nepal. In federalism, the Commission is not merely 'another' constitutional entity, as the government perhaps wants to see it.
After putting the constitutional and political frames of federalism in place, the implementation of fiscal federalism is the sole and cardinal imperative to ensure that the new system proves to be an e...