FEDERATING NEPAL IN THREE STATES AND EIGHTEEN AUTONOMOUS REGIONS

[A federal structure is proposed here which can go a long way to fulfill many such desirable qualities, including the aspirations of the Utpidit Pesha Karmi, Madhesis and the ethnic communities for having identity based autonomy – and also the agenda of the Maoists’ party for federating Nepal into identity-based autonomous regions – without compromising the unification of the country so that parties like NC and UML may also find it acceptable.]

By Basudev Uprety PhD*

1. Three Federal States with Eighteen Autonomous Regions

The disagreements among parties and between influential communities on the issue of federating Nepal along identity versus non-identity based states have become the primary cause for dissolving Constitutional Assembly with the subsequent impact for the split of the Maoist party in two factions, and for not having a government that can give a full budget to the nation, fill important constitutional vacancies, bring in suitable laws and hold CA-cum-parliamentary elections in time. The issue of finding a proper federal model for Nepal that is agreeable to most parties and communities now and that can give maximum freedom to future generations to fulfill the needs of their time by enjoying all kinds of rights, practices and privileges without partiality and the fear of being excluded or victimized has become very important.

A federal structure is proposed here which can go a long way to fulfill many such desirable qualities, including the aspirations of the Utpidit Pesha Karmi, Madhesis and the ethnic communities for having identity based autonomy – and also the agenda of the Maoists’ party for federating Nepal into identity-based autonomous regions – without compromising the unification of the country so that parties like NC and UML may also find it acceptable.

In a nutshell, this proposal divides the country into three federal states and eighteen autonomous regions with identity based provision for prominent ethnic groups. In an ethnic autonomous region, there should be privilege for the language of the main ethnic group for having the status equal to that of Nepali Language for conducting official work so that it can be used legally along with Nepali as and when necessary within the ethnic autonomous region, provided this language is having the legal standard and fit for conducting government official work according to the international criteria. If such an ethnic language does not meet such international standard right away, there should be provision for providing it that opportunity later once it attains that standard. Even though, in principle, no race or caste/ethnic group should enjoy more privilege than others throughout the country, consideration for giving such opportunity only to pertinent ethnic language can be made an exception to enrich culture and language of the country, provided issuing and record keeping of all official documents are done side by side in Nepali language also. If conflict arises in an expression of any document between ethnic and Nepali languages later, then this issue should be settled on the basis of what the document of the Nepali language says. Obviously, such rights has to be given to Nepali language which, being the linguafranca of Nepal, can facilitate the larger mass of people of other communities within an outside the autonomous region participating in the social, political, and economic activities.

The three federal states are called Eastern, Central and Western Federal States of Nepal. The Eastern Federal State consists of Mechi, Koshi, Sagarmatha, and Janakpur zones. It should have the state capital as Triyuga Municipality in Udaypur. This federal state should contain five autonomous regions: Limbuwan, Kochila, Kirat, Gadhi, and Mithila Auto-Regions – the Headquarter together with the districts comprising each of which can be found in table (1) below.

The Central Federal State of Nepal consists of Bagmati, Narayani, Gandaki, Lumbini, and Dhaulagiri zones with state Capital as Pokhara. It should contain seven autonomous regions: Bhojpura, Buddha-Bhumi, Tamsaling, Newa, Tamuwan, Riddi and Kaligandaki Auto-regions. The Headquarter and districts comprising each of these Auto-Regions can also be found in the table (1).

The Western Federal State of Nepal comprises of the remaining five zones – Karnali, Rapti, Bheri, Seti, and Mahakali – and, its state Capital is Birendranagar. It should contain six autonomous regions having names Rara-Karnali, Magarat, Utpidit-Pesha-Karmi, Khasan, Byas- Mahakali, and Tharuwan for the purpose of giving space, as far as possible, to all big communities of western Nepal. The composition of each of these autonomous regions and their respective Headquarters are given in the last six rows the table (1).

Table 1: Constituents of different Autonomous Regions comprising each Federal States of Nepal with respective Headquarter (Figures in braces to the right of each district are respectively number of VDCs and municipalities belonging to it)

Ser. No.	Autonomous Region	Districts comprising Autonomous Region Figures in braces show (no. of: VDCs + municipalities)	Aut o-R egion Headquareter
Eastern Federal State (5 auto-regions; 22 districts; 19 Municipalities; 1328 VDCs); capital: Triyuga M.
1	Limbu wa n Aut o-R egion	Taplejung (50VDCs), Panchthar (41), Tehrathum (32), Dhankuta (35VDCs + 1 Municipality), Ilam (48+1)	Phidim 206VDCs+2 (M)
2	Kochila Aut o-R egion	Jhapa (47+3), Morang (65+1), Sunsari (49+3)	Itahari M. 161VDCs+ 7 (M)
3	Kirat Aut o-R egion	Solukhumbu (34), Sankhuwasabha (33+1), Khotang (76), Bhojpur (63), Okhaldhunga (56)	Diktel 262VDCs+ 1 (M)
4	Gadhi Aut o-R egion	Udaypur (44+1), Sindhuli (53+1), Ramechhap (55), Dolakha (51+1)	Kamalamai M. 203VDCs+ 3 (M)
5	Mithila Aut o-R egion	Saptari (114+1), Siriha (106+2), Dhanusha (101+1), Mahottari (76+1), Sarlahi (99+1)	Janakpur M. 496VDCs+ 6 (M)

Central Federal State (7 auto-regions; 29 districts; 27 Municipalities; 1629 VDCs); capital: Pokhara
6	Bhojpura Aut o-R egion	Rautahat (96+1), Bara (98+1), Parsa (82+1)	Kalaiya M. 276VDCs + 3(M)
7	Buddha-Bhumi Aut o-R egion	Kapilbasu (77+1), Rupandehi (69+2), Nawalparashi (73+1), Chitwan (36+2)	Ramgram M. 255VDCs + 6(M)
8	Tamsaling Aut o-R egion	Sindhupalchok (79), Rasuwa (18), Nuwakot (61+1), Dhading (50), Makwanpur (43+1)	Bidur M. 251VDCs + 2 (M)
9	Newa Aut o-R egion	Kathmandu (57+2), Lalitpur (41+1), Bhaktapur (16+2), Kavrepalanchowk (87+3)	Bhaktapur M. 201VDCs + 8 (M)
10	Tamuwan Aut o-R egion	Manang (13), Gorkha (66+1), lamjung (61), Kaski (43+2), Syangja (60+2), Tanahu (46+1)	Damauli 289VDCs + 6 (M)
11	Riddi Aut o-R egion	Palpa (65+1), Argakhachi (42), Gulmi (79)	Tansen 186VDCs + 1 (M)
12	Kaligandaki Aut o-R egion	Mustang (16), Myagdi (41), Baglung (59+1), Parbat (55)	Beni 171VDCs + 1 (M)
Western Federal State (6 auto-regions; 24 districts; 12 Municipalities; 958 VDCs); capital: Birendranagar
13	Magarat Aut o-R egion	Rukum (43), Rolpa (51), Salyan (47), Phuthan (49) , Dolpa (23)	Liwang 213VDCs
14	Rara-Karnali Aut o-R egion	Humla (27), Mugu (24), Jumla (30)	Gamgadi 81VDCs
15	Utpidit-Pesakarmi Aut o-R egion	Kalikot (30), Dailekh (55+1), Surkhet (50+1), Jajarkot (30)	Narayan M. 165VDCs + 2 (M)
16	Khasan Aut o-R egion	Achham (75), Bajura (27), Bajhang (47), Doti (50+1)	Dipayal Silgadi 199VDCs + 1 (M)
17	Byas-Mahakali Aut o-R egion	Darchula (41), Baitadi (62+1), Dadeldhura (20+1)	Dasharathchanda 123VDCs + 2 (M)
18	Tharuwan Aut o-R egion	Dang (39+2), Banke (46+1), Bardiya (31+1), Kailali (42+2), Kanchanpur (19+1)	Gulariya 177VDCs + 7 (M)

2. Rationale for the 3-State 18 Auto-Regional structure

So far, all administrative and political power in Nepal has been lying in the central government. During the later Panchayat era, Local Self-Governance Act (1999) was promulgated for the decentralization of governance. But it was not implemented at all. After the advent of the parliamentary democracy with constitutional-monarchy in 1990, the party leaders got involved in logjam intra-party and inter- party disputes and paid no attention whatsoever for addressing the demands of diverse communities of the multi-ethnic Nepal with highly varied geography, through the devolution of power. It eventually made the land of Nepal a fertile ground for the Maosts Party to emerge and wage a guerrilla war. All parties are functioning in the same style even now and almost none are giving careful thought to empowering marginalized communities by giving adequate space for education, employment, income generation and political power.

UCPN (Maoists) brought the proposal of autonomous federal model for the country which could be sustained only if the country were to go under their one-party rule. If the country were to operate truly with multi-party democracy under a genuine electoral system, the central government will be highly divided and weak – frequently having the type of political logjam we are witnessing now. Moreover, the federal states will be competing for the share of meager resources with high level of confrontation, and will be drifting apart from each other and away from the center on account of their unfulfilled demand. On the other hand the weak and divided central government will be merely a paralyzed-spectator of all such events, even when federal states are at the point of seceding. Are we aware of such possibilities which are quite likely? There are many uncontrollable factors for causing such possibility, such as: divided and weak central government; too many federal states competing for few economic resources; almost all states economically vulnerable, and fresh water and energy hungry; possibility for some states to be subservient to a neighboring country at the cost of Nepal itself; easy for outsiders to play one state against another or even against center; and so on. For concern such as these, it is imperative for restricting to fewer federal states.

Any federal structure proposed for Nepal should very consciously take into consideration the sustained protection and preservation of our bountiful god – the Himalayas of Nepal. The Himalayas have made Nepal the singularly important country not only in south Asia but all over the world. It will be a great mistake if we take them as just the wonderful gift of the nature for the attraction of tourists in Nepal. They are helping people of south Asia to fulfill their energy needs and to win bread and butter. But for the south Asian, they are much more than that. They are not just the source of our stream and river system, lakes, wet lands, underground water, and hill and mountain springs; not just only the active recycler, preserver and distributor of fresh water and climate system, or the protector of flora, fauna and ecosystem of immense diversity; but also the source of birth and preservation of human civilizations of most varied races, cultures, languages flourishing in this region and beyond, under diverse religions. Actually, they are as important as oceans and their water currents, Polar Regions, and deserts for sustaining the atmospheric system, climate and ecosystem of the earth.

So long as Nepal is there, the Himalayas remain protected for the people of South Asia. But because of internal fights cultivated in this country, the development of a great political fault line seems imminent within a generation or two, the consequence of which can be devastating as far as the safe access for south Asians to the bountiful god is concerned. It is a stake of immense magnitude to worry and should all of us feel and share it sincerely with equal concern. Otherwise we may be inviting something like, the so called, Himalayan blunder of a greater magnitude than that made by some famous south Asian leaders (who are called visionary which is questionable!), which affects not only Nepal but the whole region. Would not it mean then, each federal state to be delineated in Nepal, should extend up to Himalayas and develop enthusiasm in all of us in Nepal for the environmental, infrastructural, economic and spiritual development of the Himalayan region? And what is wrong to that if it gives equal opportunity to all of us in Nepal to share the dividends coming from tourism, herbal, and spiritual development, and at the same time provides tremendous help for bringing integration and unity among people from southern plains to northern Himalayas of Nepal? And who needs to take this concern more seriously and extend loving hold on Himalayas than people of southern plains of Nepal?

Reasons such as these have precisely lead to the proposal for adopting the 3-federeal state model extended from southern plain of Nepal to Himalayas: Eastern Federal State made of Mechi, Koshi, Sagarmatha, and Janakpur zones having about 17,61, 000 households; Central Federal State made of Bagmati, Narayani, Gandaki, Lumbini, and Dhaulagiri zones having about 25,00,000 households; and Western Federal State made of Rapti, Karnali, Bheri, Seti, and Mahakali having about 11,65,000 households.

Also, taking into account the demand of the people and the factors that inspire harmonious living; and studying the transportation networks, the potentiality for developing facilitative infrastructure and self-reliant economy; and the spread of the different ethnic groups within and across different districts in each proposed federal state, altogether eighteen Autonomous Regions – five in Eastern Federal state, seven in Central, and six in Western – have been found essential in the country to afford judicious opportunity for the governance of Nepal. This partition of the country into eighteen autonomous regions also takes advantage of the existing framework of division of the country in 14 zones and 75 districts – about which people of Nepal are well familiar – to cater the interest of all important caste, ethnic and Madhesis communities to have their own respective autonomous region, each containing substantial bulk of population of a separate community living together peacefully with people of other communities.

An appropriate size of the autonomous region is judged between three to five districts from the view-point of efficiency in management, service delivery, internal security, and orchestration of 5

the development. Also, the nation will be equipped well with basic facility if every such auto- region can have a good university, a good hospital, a good pharmaceutical industry, etc. besides having good physical infrastructure.

3. The nature of the autonomy

Next, it is necessary to characterize the autonomy that can be enjoyed by an Autonomous Region within a federal state.
Among the three functions – legislative, executive and judiciary – of a government, the autonomy, in general, is associated everywhere with executive. The judiciary functions at every level – national, state, and regional – independently of the executive as per provisions given in constitution, the laws made by national and federal state parliament and the rules and regulations made by the executive organs of nation, state and autonomous region as per the laws.

The main governing body of an autonomous region – say, Regional Governing Council, for convenience – will have central offices of the region at Headquarter headed by Chief Councilor. Under the Chief Councilor can work a Joint Secretary of the state government coordinating activities of the Council with different line ministries, and a SSP looking after the maintenance of law and order in the auto-region. The functions of the line ministries at auto-regional level are headed by Under-Secretaries and at districts headed by Section Officers. The SSP looking after the maintenance of law and order in the region supervises the police and armed-police forces lead by SPs in the auto-region and DSPs in the districts.

At the auto-regional Headquarter, the government activities will be focused on planning, policies and programs, coordination & supervision, record-maintenance, monitoring & evaluation, resource generating, financial management etc. At the district level, the focus will be at delivery of services, implementation of programs, maintenance of security within the district etc. The activities to be done at the municipality and VDC level are more or less specified in the Local Self-governance Act, 1999.

Thus, an Autonomous region may have freedom to manage the following internal affairs (up to some specified level) with almost no interference from the state government:

Self-governance; adoption of region-specific model of development; develop internal planning, policies and programs, and support their implementation; record-and-information keeping; budget allocation; providing subsidies; collecting taxes; developing and maintaining regional infrastructure; role in the sharing of resources of region with state; development and management of social infrastructure on health and education within region; development and preservation of regional culture; internal security within region; want some role in land and water use pattern, income generating and economic activities within and beyond region, and employment within and beyond region; running industries and business within and beyond region; role in development of safe environment within region; and so on.

Needless to say, even if all the ingredients for autonomy are present in a regional political set up, the extent of actual autonomy that people within the region can enjoy depends much on level of development of its society and cultural awareness. In fact, all kinds of freedom, including autonomy, have to be earned by raising level of educational awareness, conscientious political culture, institutional development, and so on. As such, simply letting autonomy is not enough, but developing capacity for enjoying it is even more important – and that takes time and lots of effort.

4. Election System

The quality of leaders elected in the national and federal-state parliaments from impartial elections depends much on the choice of electoral constituencies and the manner in which candidates are fielded in them. An inappropriate choice of the electoral constituency can sometime invite political disruption of peace and harmony in the country.

In fact, something of this sort started to happen after the advent of multi-party system in Nepal in 1990. A colossal mistake occurred when top leaders then decided to keep electoral constituency for the national parliament at sub-district level. How could the members of a parliament be expected to have the stature of national leaders when they are elected from the constituencies that are best suitable for the district leaders? The country started to reel under multiple problems created inadvertently by some such leaders who basically lack clarity and vision.

i. Election System for National Parliament

An important criterion for electoral constituency for the national parliament is that it should be very large so that only a leader of national stature has the possibility of being elected from it in the parliament. Parties may claim that by fielding competent party leaders, they can avoid the situation of local level leader being elected from even a small area – such as a sub-district constituency. However, such thing will occur only rarely and is an exception instead of a general rule, since parties themselves want to field those candidates who can win election and such candidates invariably are the local leaders in small electoral constituencies – as they are more popular with the local people than the competent ones unknown to them. Another crucial point for having large electoral constituency is to get the reach of the party wise proportional representation to the level of large area. Recall that a separate mechanism, in addition to direct election, had to be used in the last Constitutional Assembly election for having proportional representation because of the use of small constituency – another crucial point for objecting the use of small constituency.

In the case of national parliament of Nepal, the best choice for an electoral constituency is each of the 14 zones which are readily available. Obviously, when the constituencies are zones, the members coming to the parliament from each zone will have to be in double digit. How is it possible to fulfill this without violating the parliamentary election norm of ‘one sit per constituency’? Well the norm is in fact ‘one sit per constituency from one front’ The way is to

open many fronts for election, and then, allow parties to compete for as many seats as there are fronts – one seat per front – in a zone.

A suitable basis for opening different fronts may be the suitably defined Sister Organizations of the party. The parties should discuss with each other to delineate strategies, and to properly define and come up with about a dozen or so fronts such as:

1. Labour Union; 2. Peasant Organization; 3. Woman Association; 4. Engineering Professionals; 5. Health Professionals; 6. Teaching Professionals; 7. Journalism/Media Professionals; 8. Law Professionals; 9. Economists, Business, Management, & Corporate Professionals; 10. Former Civil Servants / Ex-Servicemen; 11. Social, Civil-Society, and Right Workers; 12. Creative Professionals (Art, Music, Litterateur, Game, Academic Research); 13. Youth Organization

Here are in all 13 fronts for opening sister organizations. Parties should contest, at least, for 14 seats open in 14 fronts in each zone – 13 for each sister organizations and one seat for general candidate of the party. Some zones have more households and others have fewer; and some zones have lower urbanization level and others have higher. More seats are added by opening more fronts to account for such variations in the size of the zone according to the rule discussed in detail later. From each electoral constituency, one member should be sent to parliament from each front so that election will be contested front wise, one front opened for general candidate of party and one for each sister organization – if exactly 14 members have to send from a zone.

Of course, all the eligible voters of the zone should have the right to cast vote for every seat contested in the zone.

Suppose a zone has to send more than 14 members, say 21 members to parliament – 19 fielded from rural areas and 2 from urban areas. We can then open rural/urban fronts. Open any sex front for any nine from among the 13 sister organizations or general candidate, and male and female fronts separately for each of the other 5 remaining to make up 19 rural fronts; and take any sex front from any two sister organizations or general candidate two make up 2 urban fronts. Thus, the number of fronts on sex and urban/rural in each zonal constituency will depend on the number of seats required in rural and urban region of the zonal constituency in the context.

From a small constituency such as Karnali zone, one member will be sent to parliament from each sister organization and one from among general party candidates. From a big constituency such as Bagmati zone, a female member will be sent from among female general party candidates, and a male member from among male general party candidates of the rural and urban area separately; and this process will be applied to send male and female members to parliament from specific sister organization also – the details for which will be given later in sub-section (a) of this section.

Such a process of electing members of parliament from the sister organizations of parties from zones will help to bring nearness among people of different communities. Then, each party will be proportionally represented up to the zone avoiding the need for using strange mixed (both direct and proportional) system of elections. Note that if parties were to field Janajati/woman/Dalit /Madhesi proportionately in every zonal constituency, the desired situation for having proportional representation of these groups in parliament will be possible. Further, there will be a good opportunity for marginalized groups to have better representation in the parliament if they were to fight the election by forming a single party or coalition of parties of Madhesis and Janajatis. Note that this process of forming parliament has enough ingredients for ensuring impartial representation of all ethnic/caste/marginalized groups in mountains, hills and terai in all federal states.

In our country, manpower utilization has remained the most neglected sector at all time in the past. It has become the source for fostering rebellious minds; discordance in planning and policies; inharmonious relations and half-heartedness in offices, teaching & learning, and work places; and poor output of the performance everywhere. As a consequence of which we have remained educationally, economically, institutionally, politically undeveloped and so forth. If the members of parliament were to be elected from the sister organizations of the parties in this way, then we can expect to have ebullient, informed and vibrant parliament having potentiality for bringing in dynamic positive changes on every side of development including manpower utilization. It can also raise the interest of the professional and educated in the participation of party politics, there by raising possibility for bringing refinement in governance and political institutions. Needless to say, such sister organizations can also function like eyes and ears of the parties and help to engineer future development of the country in proper direction.

a. Rule for fielding Candidates in Zonal Constituency 
Step 1: Allocating number of seats in each zone

1) From any zone, at least one member in Parliament has to be elected from each Sister Organization of Party, and at least one from among General Candidates of Party. Thus the rule is to allot at least one seat to each sister organization, and at least one seat to general candidate of party – making the minimum number of seats to be contested in each zone = 14.

2) Every zone having up to 2 lakh households has to be given only the minimum set of seats.

3) If a zone has more than 2 lakh households then additional seats will have to be allotted with the rule:

* One seat per 25,000 households in the range 2 – 3 lakhs,


* Then one seat per 50,000 households in the range 3 – 6 lakhs

* And then, one seat per 100000 households thereafter

The last addition of seat should correspond to make the number closest to total households of the zone.
For example: 14+13 = 14+4+6+3 seats are allotted if total households in the zone is closest to 200000 + 4 x 25000 + 6 x 50000 + 3 x 100000 = 900000, among 900000 – 100000 = 800000, 900000, and 900000 + 100000 = 1000000.

The allotted number of seats for each zonal constituency is shown in column 3 of table (2).

4) Urban areas have higher importance than rural because of concentration of economic, industrial, business, educational, informational, cultural and other socio-economic developmental activities there, and because of the distributional and marketing role they play for rural areas. So, higher emphasis is given for having better representation of urban areas while allotting additional seats. The rule for allotting seats in urban areas is as follows:

* Households of all municipalities in each zone are added and no. of municipalities and households are shown in columns 3 and 4 of the table 2.

* Observe how many municipal households a zone has:
For up to10 thousand households allot: allot 1 seat (See: Dhaulagiri)
For additional 15 thousand or so households: 1 seat ( See Rapti, for 10+15 thous.) For next additional 20 thousand or so households: another 1 seat
For next additional 25 thousand households: another 1 seat
For next additional 30 thousand households: another 1 seat
And so on (The last addition should make the resulting number closest to total urban households of the zone)
Example: Bagmati zone has 388040 urban households.

388040 is closest to (10+15+20+25+30+35+40+45+50+55+60) x 1000 =385000 among numbers (10+15+20+25+30+35+40+45+50+55) x 1000 = 325000, 385000, and (10+15+20+25+30+35+40+45+50+55+60+65) x 1000 = 450000.
So Bagmati gets 11 seats for urban part.

5) The number of seats to be allotted to rural part of a zone is obtained by deducting number of urban seats from total seats of the zone. Bagmati gets 27 – 11 = 16 seats = 14 +2 seats for rural part

Step 2: fielding candidates in allotted seats

In a zone that allows parties to contest for only minimum number of seats, any contesting party should be allowed to field one candidate from each sister organization, and one general candidate of the party. The problem regarding what fronts to open for contesting in the seats allotted to urban or rural areas – when there are more seats to be contested in a zonal constituency than the minimum number of seats – can be tackled as follows.

Consider the case of Bagmati zone, where there are 27 seats to be contested – 16 seats for rural and 11 for urban areas.

In this case urban and rural can serve as two fronts for any 10 sister organizations, and also for general candidate. Let they be: 1. general candidate of party; 2. Labour Union; 3. Peasant Organization; 4. Woman Association; 5. Engineering Professionals; 6. Law Professionals; 7. Economists, Business & Corporate Professional; 8. Former civil servants / ex-servicemen; 9. Social, Civil-Societies & Right Workers; 10. Creative Professional (Litterateur, Art and Music); 11. Youth Organization.

And the remaining five rural seats can be: 1. Journalism/Media Professionals; 2. Male Teaching Professionals; 3. Female Teaching Professionals; 4. Male Health Professionals; 5. Female Health Professionals

Note that the parties should internally take care to represent Gender/Janajati/Madhesis/ Dalit /Marginalized properly while fielding the candidate.

b. Casting votes

It is important to note that each eligible voter of a zone should have the right for casting a vote for every seat contested in the zone, whatever may be the seat allotted for: rural or urban. This provision is exceptionally good in the sense that each candidate, irrespective of where he is from rural or urban, has to establish his credential in the whole zone – making it imperative for him to speak and act for the good of both rural and urban population of whole zone.

ii. Election System for a Federal State Parliament

For electing members of a Federal State Parliament, the following electoral constituencies have to be kept in each district of the federal state:

(i) Metro if present; (ii) Sub-Metro if present; (iii) other collective urban areas of 25 thousand households or more within district; and (iii) remaining part of the district (considered as rural constituency even though it too may have urban households also).

First, it is necessary to decide the number of members in each Federal State Parliament and the number of seats to be allocated to each electoral constituency. They have to depend on the overall size of the federal state reflecting number of households, urbanization, and geographical size accounting topographical variability. The following table provides figures for measuring and comparing the different dimensions of three federal states.

Table 3: Number of households, VDCs, municipalities and districts, and urbanization level in three federal states

A reasonable figure for number of members in a state parliament may be 35 to 65. Tentatively an urban constituency with 25 to 40 thousand households can elect one member, with 40 to 70 thousand households 2 members, 70 to 150 thousands three and more than 150 thousands four. Each district should be given at least one seat for its rural constituency. Mountain district having 20 to 35 thousand households in rural constituency should be given two seats, and having more than 35 thousand households should be given three seats. Hill district having 30 to 45 thousand households in rural constituency should be given two seats, and having more than 45 thousand households should be given three seats. Tarai districts having 40 to 70 thousand households in rural constituency should be given two seats, and having more than 70 thousand households should be given three seats. Whenever a constituency has more than one seat, fronts should be open for other seats as in National Parliament’s electoral constituency – this time considering the front as technical and non-technical professions. Wherever more than one seat is allotted to a state electoral constituency, at least one seat should be for professional or academician in science and technology.

5. Regional Governing Council

The elected member of all VDCs in the Autonomous Region will constitute the General Electoral Body for electing members of Regional Governing Council. The structure of the Council and the mode of selecting its Chief and other office bearers have to be determined by the parties and Constitutional Assembly.

6. A byproduct Model

A by product model of the 3- Federal State Model can be a Unitary State Model with Nineteen Autonomous Regions. To get this, we can create four Autonomous Regions from the three Auto- Regions described in serial numbers 4, 8 and 9.

Auto-Region -   Districts in Auto-region -  Headquarter 
Gadhi  - Udayapur, Sindhuli, Makwanpur  - Kamalamai  

Tamsaling - Ramechhap, Dolakha, Kavrepalanchowk, Sindhupalchowk - Dhulikhel
Trisuli : Nuwakot, Rasuwa, Dhading -Bidur
Newa -  Kathmandu, Bhaktapur, Lalitpur - Bhaktapur

The following table shows the Unitary State Model of Nepal with nineteen Autonomous Regions

Table 4: Division of Nepal in Noneteen Autonomus Regions 

Ser. No.	Autonomous Region	Districts comprising Autonomous Region Figures in braces show (no. of VDCs and municipalities)	Aut o-R egion Headquareter
1	Limbu wa n Aut o-R egion	Taplejung (50VDCs), Panchthar (41), Tehrathum (32), Dhankuta (35 + 1 Municipality), Ilam (48+1)	Phidim 206VDCs+2 (M)
2	Kochila Aut o-R egion	Jhapa (47+3), Morang (65+1), Sunsari (49+3)	Itahari M. 161VDCs+ 7 (M)
3	Kirat Aut o-R egion	Solukhumbu (34), Sankhuwasabha (33+1), Khotang (76), Bhojpur (63), Okhaldhunga (56)	Diktel 262VDCs+ 1 (M)
4	Gadhi Aut o-R egion	Udaypur (44+1), Sindhuli (53+1), Makwanpur (43+1)	Kamalamai M. 140VDCs+ 3 (M)
5	Mithila Aut o-R egion	Saptari (114+1), Siriha (106+2), Dhanusha (101+1), Mahottari (76+1), Sarlahi (99+1)	Janakpur M. 496VDCs+ 6 (M)
6	Bhojpura Aut o-R egion	Rautahat (96+1), Bara (98+1), Parsa (82+1)	Kalaiya M. 276VDCs + 3(M)
7	Buddha-Bhumi Aut o-R egion	Kapilbasu (77+1), Rupandehi (69+2), Nawalparashi (73+1), Chitwan (36+2)	Ramgram M. 255VDCs + 6(M)
8	Tamsaling	Sindhupalchok (79), Kavrepalanchowk (87+3),	Dhulikhel

	Aut o-R egion	Ramechhap (55), Dolakha (51+1)	272VDCs + 4 (M)
9	Trisuli Aut o-R egion	Rasuwa (18), Nuwakot (61+1), Dhading (50),	Bidur M. 129VDCs + 1 (M)
10	Newa Aut o-R egion	Khathmandu (57+2), Lalitpur (41+1), Bhaktapur (16+2),	Bhaktapur M. 114VDCs + 5 (M)
11	Tamuwan Aut o-R egion	Manang (13), Gorkha (66+1), lamjung (61), Kaski (43+2), Syangja (60+2), Tanahu (46+1)	Damauli 289VDCs + 6 (M)
12	Riddi Aut o-R egion	Palpa (65+1), Argakhachi (42), Gulmi (79)	Tansen 186VDCs + 1 (M)
13	Kaligandaki Aut o-R egion	Mustang (16), Myagdi (41), Baglung (59+1), Parbat (55)	Beni 171VDCs + 1 (M)
14	Magarat Aut o-R egion	Rukum (43), Rolpa (51), Salyan (47), Phuthan (49) , Dolpa (23)	Liwang 213VDCs
15	Rara-Karnali Aut o-R egion	Humla (27), Mugu (24), Jumla (30)	Gamgadi 81VDCs
16	Utpidit-Pesakarmi Aut o-R egion	Kalikot (30), Dailekh (55+1), Surkhet (50+1), Jajarkot (30)	Narayan M. 165VDCs + 2 (M)
17	Khasan Aut o-R egion	Achham (75), Bajura (27), Bajhang (47), Doti (50+1)	Dipayal Silgadi 199VDCs + 1 (M)
18	Mahakali Aut o-R egion	Darchula (41), Baitadi (62+1), Dadeldhura (20+1)	Dasharathchanda 123VDCs + 2 (M)
19	Tharuwan Aut o-R egion	Dang (39+2), Banke (46+1), Bardiya (31+1), Kailali (42+2), Kanchanpur (19+1)	Gulariya 177VDCs + 7 (M)

The election to the National Parliament has to be conducted in the manner described above taking Zonal Constituencies and fixing number seats in each zone by opening fronts for Sister Organizations, General Candidate of Party, Rural/Urban, and Male/Female/Any-Sex Candidate as discussed before.
The provision for Regional Governing Council and its Chief for each autonomous region has to be made as suggested in the case of Three-State Model.

The election to the National Parliament has to be conducted in the manner described above taking Zonal Constituencies and fixing number seats in each zone by opening fronts for Sister Organizations, General Candidate of Party, Rural/Urban, and Male/Female/Any-Sex Candidate as discussed before.

The provision for Regional Governing Council and its Chief for each autonomous region has to be made as suggested in the case of Three-State Model.

* The author is a University of California, Berkeley trained  Professor of Mathematics at Tribhuvan University Kathmandu.