Open budget, open parliament, open government, open data, open Nepal, and now the Open Singha Durbar. The Open Singha Durbar, a campaign initiated and encouraged by freedom1 Forum is gaining significant pace day by day in Nepal. Singha Durbar is the place of central administration of Nepal, where common people’s access is too difficult.
In this light, freedom1 Forum had prodded the concerned agencies demanding easy access of common people to Singh Durbar, which resides numerous ministries, including the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Minister, National Planning Commission, secretariats, and decisions of various kinds are made, but without citizens’ access.
Encouraged by the freedom1 Forum’s initiative, an application bearing signatures of 342 youths was registered at the National Information Commission (NIC) on May 5, demanding easy access of the general public to Singha Durbar. Youths from the districts in the Kathmandu Valley to the outside as Lalitpur, Sindhupalchok, Chitwan, Nawalparasi, Sindhuli, Dolakha, Nuwakot, Rasuwa, Terhathum have expedited the campaign under the leadership of the Swabhiman Manch Nepal and collected the signatures for that purpose.
The application calls on the NIC to make the government that it issued instructions for providing easy access to the general public to Singha Durbar.
It is stated in the application that the general public are compelled to take recourse to such means as pleading with the civil servants working within the Singha Durbar based offices or politicians and sometimes brokers or go-betweens for getting permit chits to enter the central government secretariat complex. The application also states that because the general people do not have easy access to Singha Durbar, they are deprived of their right to take information from the government offices.
The applicants have contended that even the earthquake survivors are facing difficulties as the office of the National Reconstruction Authority that is responsible for their rehabilitation is also located inside the Singha Durbar.
To this, Chairperson of freedom1 Forum, Taranath Dahal, observed, “The Open Singha Durbar campaign is now voluntary, clean, awareness-raising and participatory campaign luring youths from diverse sectors that obviously exerts pressure on the government and other agencies to be accountable to the public by adhering to the RTI.”
The joint application has demanded that the NIC issue instruction to the bodies concerned to make provisions for providing unrestricted access to the general public to the public bodies located inside the Singha Durbar complex by removing the restriction on entry.
With similar vein, the freedom1 Forum’s Charperson Mr Dahal, on March 27, had drawn the attention of the NIC towards the deprivation of citizen’s right to information owing to the obstruction to them from entering into the Singha Durbar.
The Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers and the Parliament Secretariat were also informed of the applications at the NIC.