Securities Board of Nepal Appoints New Chairman Dr. Gopal Bhatta

Kathmandu. After almost 2 months, the Securities Board of Nepal has got a new leadership. Dr. Gopal Bhatta has been appointed as the chairman on Friday to the post of chairman which was vacant since the resignation of the then chairman Santoshnarayan Shrestha on Baisakh 4.

Along with Shrestha's resignation, the council of ministers had formed a committee under the leadership of National Planning Commission Vice Chairman Gunakar Bhatta at the meeting held on Baisakh 8. The members of the committee were Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, Nepal, Ghanashyam Upadhyay and expert member Bhuvan Dahal.

नेपाल धितोपत्र बोर्डको अध्यक्षमा भट्ट नियुक्त

47 people had applied for the application called by the committee. However, since Gopal Bhatta, a relative of the coordinator Gunakar Bhatta, was also included in the application, he resigned.

After that, the responsibility of coordination was given to National Planning Commission member Dr. Sanjay Acharya. The committee had shortlisted 4 names. Those shortlisted included Gopal Bhatta, Dr. Navraj Adhikari, Binaydev Acharya, and Mukunda Chhetri.

Among them, the committee included the names of Chhetri, Bhatta, and Acharya. Among them, the council of ministers decided to make him the chairman.

Who is Bhatta?

Gopal Bhatta is an expert in the banking sector and a former executive director of Nepal Rastra Bank. He was also known as an expert in the capital market. The newly appointed chairman Bhatta, a permanent resident of Kailali, has also completed his doctorate on the effectiveness of Nepal's capital market.

After retiring from the post due to a 30-year service period, he also became a director of Nepal SBI Bank. While at Rastra Bank, he worked in departments such as economic research, bank supervision, national debt, financial management, human resources, and finance company supervision.

Bhatta had been applying for the positions opened by the Securities Board for some time. However, his name could not even make it to the final list. The government has given this opportunity to him who had applied.

Bhatta has the responsibility to resolve the irregularities that some previous leaderships had invited to the board. Especially, the chairmen of the board have been controversial since the tenure of Bhishma Raj Dhungana. The appointments and working styles of Ramesh Hamal and Santoshnarayan Shrestha were not free from controversy when Dhungana had to resign before completing his term.

Currently, there is an IPO pipeline of more than 90 billion rupees in the board. However, it has not been approved. However, the board leadership has also been accused of approving some IPOs without completing the process.

On the other hand, the examples of the flourishing business of selling IPOs at premium prices in the name of book building and insider trading in the capital market are also shown by the recent prosecution process and prosecution status.

Besides this, the compulsion to enhance its capacity, accessibility, and universal acceptance to make the capital market technology-friendly and international-level has also fallen on his shoulders.