At an emergency meeting called by Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Sunday afternoon, five ruling and two opposition parties took the decision in an attempt to calm down the ongoing protests in the Tarai.
"Now the government will take any decision related to establishment of service centers only in recommendation of the all-party meeting in the districts," said Information and Communications Minister Krishna Bahadur Mahara, after the meeting.
In a four-point agreement, the parties also decided to reinstate all the government offices displaced during the Maoist insurgency at their original locations.
Ruling Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), Madhesi People’s Rights Forum and Communist Party of Nepal (United), and opposition parties -- Nepali Congress and Tarai-Madhes Democratic Party participated in the meeting.
At the meeting, the government made it clear that it does not have any plan and intention to shift district headquarters, according to Ram Kumar Sharma, a TMDP leader who attended the meeting.
“We have decided to appeal to the people and political parties concerned to reopen the East-West Highway which remains obstructed for the past few days,” said Sharma.
The TMDP led an agitation immediately after the government decided to set up such centers in some districts in the central Tarai. Following days of anti-government protests, the government backed off on its decision.
The government’s second decision enraged the people along Highway towns like Bardibas, Harion, Nijgadh and Chandranigahapur where the service centers were to be set up. These towns are away from district headquarters and inhabited mostly by people of hills origin.
People from the district headquarters and southern part of Tarai began protests assuming that the government decision to set up the centers away is a move to shift government offices from their areas.
The prime minister called the meeting through short notice after senior bureaucrats at the Home Ministry sought his support for resolving the controversy. They asked the prime minister to find political solution to the controversy.
The government has planned to establish altogether 52 Integrated Administrative Service Centers -- both in the hills and the Tarai to provide government services to people without hassles.
The services include distribution of citizenship certificate, passport, postal services and payment of taxes among other things.
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