Bagmati Province Government Faces Administrative Paralysis After Ministry Merger

Hetauda. Four months after the Bagmati Province government merged 14 ministries into 8 to reduce administrative costs, the administrative structure has not yet returned to normalcy. Although the Council of Ministers has approved the 'Organization and Management Survey' (O&M) of the employees after a long tug-of-war, the province's entire administrative and development construction work has come to a standstill due to the inability to manage the secretaries properly.

Due to the uncertainty in work division, authority, and staffing, development budgets have not been spent even as three months of the current fiscal year are about to pass, and employees in some offices have not even received their salaries. Although the provincial government has reduced the number of ministries to 8, the administrative uncertainty has increased due to the lack of a final decision on staffing and organizational structure. The delay in the approval of the Organization and Management Survey (O&M) by the Council of Ministers has resulted in employees not receiving salaries and allowances since July, and new development construction agreements have also been halted.