Concept of Regional Development and Federalism – Unit 1

Development

Development is the positive and progressive change in the perception, thoughts, beliefs, and lifestyle of an individual, society, or a nation as a whole. Natural resources, human resources, and financial resources are considered as the components for development. Every development process aims to satisfy human needs and aspirations. The ultimate goal of development is to upgrade the standard of human life.

Concept of Development:

1. Economic, social, political, and cultural prosperity
2. Increase in production of services and facilities
3. Fulfillment of demands
4. Freedom and Equality
5. Transformation of traditional thoughts into contemporary thoughts
6. Poverty alleviation
7. Self-rest and independence

Needs of Development:

Following are the needs of development:

1. To satisfy human necessities.
2. To achieve socio-economic transformation.
3. To develop conservative thoughts into contemporary thoughts.
4. To lead a better, prosperous and quality of life.

Concept of Regional Development and Federalism

Regional Development refers to the development process by dividing a larger geographical area (or territory) into smaller territories to achieve proportional development. Its main objective is to deliver services and facilities to the people in an easy and fast way.

Federalism (or federal system of government) is the political system of government in which a single nation is divided into several autonomous states (or provinces) having their own rights, duties, and powers. In federalism, either a single country is divided into smaller states or smaller states are combined to form a united country. It is also known as decentralization.

Federalism in Nepal

Important Dates to Remember:

• Nepal was divided into 75 districts and 14 zones on 1st Baisakh, 2018 BS.
• Nepal was divided into 4 development regions in 2029 BS.
• Nepal was divided into 5 development regions in 2037 BS.

Nepal adopted the federal system of government on 15th Jestha, 2065 BS. Nepal has been divided into seven provinces. There are three levels of government: Central level, Provincial level, and Local level.

Powers of the three Level:

• Central Level has powers relating to national security, territorial integrity, and security of the country. It deals with international affairs and maintains friendly relation with other countries. It also governs other services of the countries which are provided from the Central level like: central banking, national transportation and communication, monetary and banking, etc.

• Provincial level has its powers limited to its own province only. It can utilize the available means and resources to provide state level services like: state universities, state library, other basic facilities; and also facilitates intra-state trade. It also manages lands, and land records.

• Local level has the least yet the most powers. No development works can run in an area without the agreement of the local government. It also provided basic services and facilities in local levels. Similarly, it can run smaller developemnt projects like: cooperatives, FMs, municipal police, etc. It also has the rights to collect local tax.

Advantages of Federalism

To achieve rapid growth and development, Nepal had transformed its existing central political system into federal system. So, there are quite a lot advantages of Federalism:

1. It leads to decentralization of power so, services and facilities can be easily accessed by every people.
2. It helps in maintaining regional balance in development thus, leading to proportional development.
3. It helps to settle conflict at local level.
4. It helps to make the optimum utilization of available means and resources.
5. It helps in conserving the local arts, cultures, traditions, and heritages.

Disadvantages of Federalism

Everything in this world comes with a good and a bad aspect. Following are the disadvantages of federalism:

1. It increases the expenditure of the government as there are more governmental units.
2. When a state or province gets highly developed, they might want an independent existence thus, threatening the territorial integrity.
3. There may be issues or conflicts between states in the matters if utilizing means and resources located in the border of two or more provinces.
4. It may threaten the existence of multiple identities in a province.