… a minimum of  28 in each thromde

Election: Each of the 16 dzongkhag thromde would require a minimum of 28 people excluding the thrompon and the executive secretary to run the thromde offices.

This is according to preliminary requirement worked out by the Department of Human Settlement.  Of the 28, at least 15 will be technical staff including engineers, division chiefs, urban planners and building inspectors among others. Another 13 staff required are non-technical or administrative staff including drivers.

The manpower strength could be deployed according to the size of thromde.

Department of human settlement’s director, Wangchuk Thayey said with 28 staff, a thromde office should be able to operate. The minimum required numbers were worked out based on the dzongkhag thromde size.

Except for smaller dzongkhags such as Zhemgang, Gasa, Pemagatshel, Trongsa and Dagana, other dzongkhags already have a fairly good number of technical staff that currently are working with dzongkhag municipalities.

Despite mobilization of municipality staff, the new thromdes will still be faced with a total manpower gap of 280 people. Of that 106 are technical and 174 non-technical.

For instance dzongkhag thromde in Bumthang will require an additional five technical and 12 non-technical staff and Dagana thromde, which has one of the smallest thromde size of 0.44sqkm, will need 10 technical and 12 non-technical staff. Thromdes such as Mongar would not require any additional technical staff but would require 11 non-technical.

Similarly Gasa thromde requires an additional 14 technical and 13 non-technical staff.

Director Wangchuk Thayey said although preliminary requirement was worked out, without confirmation from the Election Commission of Bhutan on whether elections in all 16 dzongkhags will be conducted at the same time, it is not known if all these manpower will be required at once.

“We’re in a dilemma whether we should go ahead with submitting requirement to the Royal Civil Service Commission,” he said.

The director said although the minimum requirement to function as a thromde is 28 staff, thromde like Gasa might not require all 28 initially. Manpower requirement will be prioritized depending on the urgency.

The number of staff worked out by the department may not suit the staff need in individual thromde once the thrompon and executive secretary takes charge of the office. In that case, it depends on the thrompon to justify to RCSC for additional human resource requirement, Wangchuk Thayey said.

At least all the 16-dzongkhag thromdes have ‘implementable’ structural plans ready except for dzongkhags that have extended areas under it. Works began on readying the plans soon after declaration of class ‘B’ thromde sometime in 2010.

But when the status changed from class ‘B’ to dzongkhag thromde, some areas were extended. For instance when Trashigang was categorized class ‘B’ thromde, only the core area was included. As a dzongkhag thromde now, the area is extended until Pam. Gasa’s plan was completed recently.

The department also has implementable structural plans ready for the 10 yenlag thromdes and plans for other 10 yenlag thromdes will be completed by next July.

Asked if yenlag thromdes would require separate staffing, the director said going by the Local Government Act, yenlag thromde will be either with dzongkhag administration or gewog administration.

Since department of human settlement is looking after rural development as well, RCSC’s recent organizational development (OD) exercise has recommended establishment of human settlement sector in each dzongkhag.

The human settlement sector will look after throms (town) that do not fall in the dzongkhag or yenlag thromde.  Director Wangchuk Thayey said the sector will ensure compliance of construction in rural areas.  It will cater to technical backstopping of yenlag thromdes as well.

However the establishment will come through only if the Cabinet approves the OD exercise recommendation.

Nirmala Pokhrel

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