“This document ‘Crash course on local politics in Nepal’ was used as a reading document for teachers and students of Nepal studies AS. The purpose was for this document to provide them with an understanding of the political and societal framework of Nepal. As the document is set out extremely clearly it certainly would do this for students and teachers.

“Unfortunately this syllabus has now been withdrawn and was last examined in June 2020, thus there would be no further use for this document.

“In terms of the document I have no suggestions for improvement as I found it clear, well laid out with a good level of detail for my needs.”

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Thank so much for your comment! Indeed, municipalities are not branches of the DDCs. However, the District Council is in legal terms the upper-most representative authority at local level. The DDC Council meeting – called annually by the DDC Chairman – approves the annual plan of the district. At the District Council meeting, mayors are called as representatives of the local municipalities (if any) just as VDC chairmen are called as main representatives of the VDCs. It is in this sense that municipalities out in the districts can be viewed as lower in the organisational hierarchy than DDCs. But otherwise it is entirely correct that municipalities – like VDCs – have their own plans and budgets and are autonomous local bodies to that extent. Thanks again for your input and do let us know if anything is missing (it’s our reading of the Local Self-governance of 1999…)