IMAGE: PRIME MINISTER’S OFFICE
ON MARCH 27TH Nepal’s new prime minister, Balendra Shah, was sworn in. The next day his office released a 100-day reform agenda. Sandwiched between pledges about infrastructure and agriculture was a section on digital governance that would make a Silicon Valley chief executive blush.
The plan includes an auto-fill system for government forms; a single digital platform for all public services; a file-tracking mechanism to shame slow-moving bureaucrats; and a deadline to shut down betting apps within 24 hours. The ambition is striking. So is the speed. Nepal’s famously sprawling bureaucracy is being told to become paperless, as well as interconnected and user-friendly by mid-summer.
For a state where obtaining a driving licence involves long queues and the help of a middleman, the promise is transformative. The proposal is guided by a sensible principle: citizens provide their data once, and the state reuses it. Forms would auto-populate with citizenship numbers, addresses and biometric details already held by the government. A national digital identity—tied to the existing National ID card—would serve as the authentication key for everything from police reports to property registrations. An appointment system would let citizens pick their own times for services that still demand a physical visit. The underlying logic is that of any well-designed consumer platform: let the user feel that the system works for them and not the other way around.
That logic, however, collides with the messy reality of Nepal’s governance. The plan envisions a “National Integrated Digital Governance Platform” that would unify federal, provincial and local services into a single-window system. To achieve that, it proposes creating a new Information Technology and E-Governance Office under the prime minister’s direct control, abolishing the existing IT department and folding other related bodies into it.
The aim is efficiency through central command. But centralisation carries risks. A single digital gateway for all public services would create a concentration of data—and power—unprecedented in Nepal’s federal structure. Local governments, which have grown accustomed to autonomy since the 2015 constitution, may find their digital destinies dictated from Kathmandu.
The timeline makes concern worse. Implementing a national data exchange platform, drafting a new IT and e-governance bill, establishing an independent regulatory authority, and preparing a national enterprise architecture framework—all within 60 to 100 days—is a pace that invites shortcuts. Security and privacy are mentioned in the form of a promise to draft a personal data protection law within 60 days.
But drafting a law and building a system that embeds it are different things. Rolling out a unified digital identity system before the legal safeguards are in place would put the cart before the horse. As one sceptic in Kathmandu says: the plan reads like a product launch rather than a public administration reform.
Still, the appetite for change is real. Nepal’s bureaucracy is famously resistant but it is also famously slow. The public’s patience has worn thin. Mr Shah, a former mayor of Kathmandu known for his unconventional style, is betting that a digital blitz can outrun institutional paralysis. The ban on betting apps within 24 hours—a crowd-pleasing move against platforms accused of fuelling addiction—suggests he understands the value of quick wins.
Yet the main question is: will the infrastructure being built serve citizens or just serve the centre? A paperless government is a worthy goal. A government that knows everything about its citizens, before those citizens have any legal recourse if things go wrong, is something else entirely. ■
