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E-Governance in Nepal: Progress, Challenges and

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DOI: 10.5958/2321-2136.2018.00001.2

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Public Affairs and Governance
Vol. 6, No. 1, March 2018, pp. 1-22 IndianJournals.com
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DOI: 10.5958/2321-2136.2018.00001.2

E-Governance in Nepal: Progress, Challenges

and Possibilities
Shobhit Shakya

ABSTRACT
Almost two decades after the first initiative towards e-Governance
through the IT policy of 2000, Nepal has so far struggled with
implementation of e-Governance due to political instability and the digital
divide caused by socio-economic issues such as lack of infrastructure,
low-income level and low-literacy rate among others. However, this case
study showed that with trend towards foreign labour, Nepal has seen a
huge demand for communication resulting in improvement in the
communication infrastructure. With access to mobile technology,
possibility of citizen reach and interaction through the means of mobile
communication has become realisable. The case study shows that Nepal
is mGov-ready but is still missing out on making a larger developmental
impact through mGov due to issue within the leadership and the role of
international agencies not complementing the process in the larger
picture. It is necessary for the government of Nepal to take advantage
of witnessed mGov-readiness by developing policy towards focusing
on mobile-oriented citizen reach and interaction processes for e-
Governance.

Keywords: E-Governance, Nepal, M-governance, m-governance

readiness, IT Policy

INTRODUCTION: E-GOVERNANCE IN NEPAL

Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal is a nation that is nestled between
Tibetan Autonomous Region of China and India. It is a country of around
27 million people as per the census of 2011 (Central Bureau of Statistics,

Junior Research Fellow and Ph.D. Student, Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation
and Governance, Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Harju, Estonia
Email id: shshak@ttu.ee

Public Affairs and Governance 1

 Shobhit Shakya

2014). The country is struggling with development and its economy. Over
25% of those living in Nepal are considered impoverished, per World
Bank (Uematsu et al., 2016). In 2016, the country was among the 48
countries that were listed as LDCs by the United Nations. Nepal also
has a history of political instability. There have been major regime changes
in the past four decades and even now it is in a state of transition. The
new constitution of the country that was promulgated in 2015 is in process
of implementation with major changes in governance structure (Lawoti,
2003; ‘President promulgates Constitution of Nepal’, 2015; United Nations,
2006; Upreti, 2006).
In contrast to the general image of the country, Nepal has been adequately
open towards use of technology. Nepal had its first computer brought in
for conducting the census of 1971 (Bhattarai and Gupta, 2008). The
computer that was brought in was IBM 1401 which was first of IBM’s
1401 series of mainframe computers. Along with the acquisition of the
IBM machine Nepal also established National Computer Center in 1974
(Sharma et al., 2014). The country already had come up with its first IT
policy in the year 2000 (HLCIT Nepal, 2010; ‘IT Policy 2000’, 2000).
The government has recognised ICT as a sector of primary importance.
There have been clear efforts on establishing a level of e-Governance in
the country since the IT Policy of 2000 and the possibility of enhancing
the country’s development through e-Governance has been acknowledged.
Some landmark progresses have been achieved such as the establishment
of Government Integrated Data Centre (GIDC), establishment of
standardisation document, establishment of Public key infrastructure
among others. The country has also received very generous support from
international agencies. Organisations like International Development
Research Centre (IDRC), United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP), Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), Asian
Development Bank (ADB) and several others have actively involved in
e-Governance implementation projects in Nepal (Adhikari, 2009; Burton,
2003). There also has been a general improvement with IT industry in
Nepal with several foreign IT companies establishing subsidiaries in Nepal
(Joshi, 2016).
The wireless communication infrastructure of Nepal has also improved
greatly with mobile telephone access reaching all 75 districts of the

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 E-Governance in Nepal: Progress, Challenges and Possibilities

country and 4G LTE network becoming available in January of 2017

(‘Nepal Telecom launches 4G service’, 2017). The wireless broadband
master plan drafted by ITU even suggests a plan for universal broadband
connectivity within Nepal by the year 2020 (ITU, 2012). Nepal also moved
up from low-EGDI to middle-EGDI in 2016.
Despite of the efforts from the government, support from international
agencies and also the general enthusiasm towards ICT in the country, the
progress in e-Governance implementation in Nepal has not been entirely
successful. The progress is lagging even when comparing to neighbours
like Bhutan and Bangladesh with the E-government Development Index
(EGDI) of only 0.3458 as per the United Nations report of 2016 compared
with 0.3799 and 0.3506 of Bangladesh and Bhutan, respectively (United
Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2016). The country
is ranked 89 on UN EGDI rankings. Of the eight projects that were
selected as priority for e-Governance transformation, most are still not
into completion (‘EGOVKB|United Nations’, 2016, ‘Fate of biometric
national ID card project hangs in balance – News – The Kathmandu
Post’, 2016; KIPA, 2006).
This article seeks to explain why Nepal has not had greater progress in
e-Governance implementation despite government policy favouring it and
also suitable environment due to continued support from international
organisation and also developing ICT industry in the country. Firstly,
previous studies that have been done towards finding the challenges in e-
Governance implementation in Nepal are discussed. Most articles that
discuss the challenges are relatively older and for this reason the analysis
of the changed scenario and progresses noticed recently is done in the
second section based on interviews and secondary sources. The third
section provides further discussion regarding the key issues that have
persisted based on the findings of the research.

CHALLENGES OF E-GOVERNANCE IMPLEMENTATION:

LITERATURE REVIEW
The challenges of e-Governance in Nepal is a well-discussed topic (Dhakal
and Jamil, 2012; Dhami and Futó, 2010; Kharel and Shakya, 2012; Sharma
et al., 2014). Considering a country which has high illiteracy rate, low
per capita income, political instability and adverse geography, it is expected

Public Affairs and Governance 3

 Shobhit Shakya

that e-Governance implementation in Nepal would have major challenges

to overcome. This seems to be the theme with most of the literature
available. The main challenges that have been discussed seems to point
out towards socio-economic issues such as low literacy rate, low level of
income, lack of infrastructure, lack of skilled human resource among
others. Political issues such as the ongoing political transition and the
lack of political vision and leadership towards guiding the progress in e-
Governance seems to be mentioned in most literature as well (Adhikari,
2007; Dhami and Futó, 2010; Kharel and Shakya, 2012).
Political Issues
Political instability has been the biggest issue with any development work
in Nepal. During the period of time when the world was going through
the information technology revolution, Nepal was caught in a bitter conflict
that was started by The Communist Party of Nepal – Maoists (CPN-M)
in 1996 (Do and Iyer, 2010; Upreti, 2006). The armed conflict lasted for
a decade until 2006 taking lives of more than 13,000 people (Do and Iyer,
2010). Between all that Nepal also saw its Royal family massacred in
2001 (Hachhethu, 2009; Lee and Sparks, 2014; Upreti, 2006). The
economic progress took an impact as well. The gross domestic product
(GDP) growth rate of Nepal was 6.44% in 1990–91, which came down
to 4.9% in 2000–01 (Upreti, 2006). The peace process and the consequent
Comprehensive Peace Agreement that was signed between the
government and the Maoist party did bring back some sense of political
stability in the country (United Nations, 2006). However, as a result of
the agreement signed then, major political changes like ending of
monarchy, establishing a constitutional assembly and drafting of new
constitution followed, changing the country from a Democratic Kingdom
to a Federal Democratic Republic (Hachhethu, 2009; Upreti, 2006).
Between all this the process of e-Governance implementation in the
country seems to have sluggishly progressed.
It is not entirely the situation that there is a lack of political will towards
implementation of e-Governance in Nepal. The progress in the ICT policy
development in the country seems to show evidences of political will
(Burton, 2003). Kharel and Shakya (2012) had specifically noted that
political instability and lack of leadership, commitment and coordination
seems to be two of the major challenges in e-Governance implementation

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 E-Governance in Nepal: Progress, Challenges and Possibilities

in Nepal. The same view is also reiterated by Adhikari (2009). There

seems to be issues like frequent transfers of officers and also lack of
coordination between governmental agencies due to varied political
interests (Adhikari, 2007, 2009).
Socio-Economic Issues
Nepal is a struggling nation in many aspects related to economic
development. The GDP per capita in Nepal was last recorded at 689.50
US dollars in 2015 (‘Nepal GDP per capita’, 2017). This is less than
neighbours like Bhutan and Bangladesh. 25.2% of the population in Nepal
lives below national poverty line (‘Poverty in Nepal|Asian Development
Bank’, 2017). The general idea that electronic devices are expensive and
majority of population in Nepal cannot afford it seems to be reiterated by
several writers (Sharma et al., 2014; Sherpa, 2015; Thapa and Sein, 2010).
There also is the question of funding projects (Poudel, 2010; Sherpa, 2015).
A high illiteracy rate in the country seems to be a critical challenge as
well. Nepal is one of the countries that have the lowest literacy rate in
the world. The literacy rate in Nepal as of 2015 was only around 64.66%
(‘Nepal|UNESCO UIS’, n.d.). Data regarding computer literacy was
difficult to be found but is assumed to be low. Given that not all literate
population in Nepal speak English, the lack of software in local language
seems to be a serious issue (Chapagain, 2006; D. Shrestha, 2015). Gender
imbalance among the literate population is also discussed as a major
problem as far less female population are literate specially in remote
areas literate (Burton, 2003; Rai, 2004; Shrestha, 2007). The low literacy
rate has also contributed to the low availability of skilled human resource
in the field of ICT. However, it is not that the skilled ICT labour is non-
existent in the country. IT education in Nepal started very early (Shakya
and Rauniar, 2002). Computer science as an optional subject in secondary
level school curriculum was already available during the 90s and the ICT
Policy of 2000 already focused on ICT education (‘IT Policy 2000’, 2000;
Shields, 2009). But, a stand-alone ICT Education plan was only published
on 2013 (UNESCO, 2014). There already were four universities that
were providing ICT education in Nepal in 2002 (Shakya and Rauniar,
2002). Still, there is an issue with older generation not having any ICT
skills. There is also a ‘brain drain’ which is seeing IT students opting for
foreign education and jobs (Bhattarai, 2009). These issues with shortage

Public Affairs and Governance 5

 Shobhit Shakya

of human resources in field of ICT in Nepal have been acknowledged by

several writers (Dhami and Futó, 2010; Kharel and Shakya, 2012; Sharma
et al., 2014).
Also a major issue highlighted by most writers is the lack of development
infrastructures in the country (Chapagain, 2006; Kharel and Shakya, 2012;
Poudel, 2010; Shrestha, 2015). It is important to note that most articles
are discussing e-Governance and its challenges in Nepal are not very
recent and several aspects of the scenario in respect to the infrastructure
have rapidly change in the past few years. But yet it is not that more
recent articles have not mentioned the issue. Shrestha (2015) still
mentioned lack of infrastructure as a major problem. The major problem
with development of infrastructure in most part of Nepal has always
been discussed as the topography and the lack of funds (Chapagain, 2006;
ITU, 2012; Rai, 2004). The problem with infrastructure is not just with
communication infrastructure but also with other basic physical
infrastructure such as roads, electricity and water supply (Poudel, 2010;
Sharma et al., 2014).
Digital Divide
The discussions on several of the articles points towards a situation of
digital divide that exists in Nepal as a result of various socio-economic
factors (Dhakal and Jamil, 2012; Lee and Sparks, 2014; Sharma et al.,
2014; Shrestha, 2007). Issue of e-Governance and digital divide is believed
to be intertwined social phenomena (Helbig et al., 2009). While some
writers have mentioned digital divide as a roadblock for holistic
implementation of e-Governance and needing a mechanism for overcoming
it (Gurung, n.d.; Harris et al., 2003; Lazovic and Durickovic, 2012), some
have mentioned e-Governance as a possible means to overcome digital-
divide (Dhakal and Jamil, 2012). Either way it seems digital divide to be
a topic important for e-Governance implementation and overcoming digital
divide seems to be a major challenge to be overcome when concerning
e-Governance implementation. Most of the socio-economic challenges
tend to funnel down to the issue of digital divide as well. Low income
rate, low literary rate, lack of infrastructure and other socio-economic
issues seem to lead into a situation where a major portion of the population
do not have access to digital devices or services thus resulting in the
inability to benefit from digital technology.

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 E-Governance in Nepal: Progress, Challenges and Possibilities

CHANGED ICT LANDSCAPE AND M-GOVERNANCE

READINESS
In regards to the ICT sector in Nepal, a lot has changed in the last decade.
The mobile penetration rate in Nepal was already 118.34% by the end of
2016 (NTA, 2016). Considering the mobile penetration rate was only
4.03% in end of 2006 (NTA, 2007), it can be said that the increase in the
penetration rate was remarkable for a country like Nepal with its struggling
economy. There were also major shift in patterns of usage in electronic
devices as well with mobile phones becoming the third most traded
commodity in 2016 (‘Mobile phones third most traded commodity in
Nepal’, 2016). The trend towards foreign labour had also caused a major
socio-economic paradigm shift in the country enabling better purchasing
capacity among the people (Seddon et al., 1998). The increase in IT
skilled human resource, availability of ICT education in the country and
the relatively lesser labour rate meant the IT industry in the country had
also developed largely (Prasain, 2016; Joshi, 2016).
Socio-Economic Shift
Starting from the early 2000s, there was a major socio-economic shift in
Nepal. While the census of 2001 showed that 59.61% of the GDP was
contributed by agriculture (Satyal, 2010), by the fiscal year 2012/13, it
was only 33.40% (Central Bureau of Statistics, 2014). The 2001 census
shows that 65.7% of the population was generally active in agriculture
but only 59.6% claimed agriculture as their usually active occupation
(Satyal, 2010). The 2008 Labour Force Survey showed that 69.7% of
workers were working outside agriculture as well (ILO, 2014). While the
primary occupation of the people was in decline, there was sharp increase
in the remittance. From fiscal year 2010/11 to the fiscal year 2013/14,
remittance doubled from 25,3551.6 million to 543,294.1 million (Central
Bureau of Statistics, 2014). The labour migration abroad has been sharply
increasing till 2013/14. Only in fiscal year 2013/14, the total number of
labour permits issued was 519,638, which was more than double of the
fiscal year 2008/09. It is also important to note that not all people going
abroad to work obtained permit from the labour department. For instance,
people going for work in India did not needed to obtain any permit and
accurate data of how many people went to work in India is not available.
However, it was recorded in the census of 1991 that around 89.2% total

Public Affairs and Governance 7

 Shobhit Shakya

Figure 1: Trend in Labour Permits Issued from Fiscal Year 2008/09 to 2014/15
Source: Ministry of Labour and Employment (2015)

absent population in Nepal was contributed by migration to India (Bhattrai,

2007). The graph of increase in labour permits issued is given in Figure 1.
The effect of foreign labour and inflow of remittance and trend of giving
up agriculture for better options also has resulted in an astounding rate of
urbanisation in Nepal. Nepal is considered to be one of the countries with
fastest urbanisation in the world (Bakrania, 2015). While dependency in
agriculture had kept, the population rooted to their locality of origin and
near to family and friends, the work-abroad culture and the developing
culture to find temporary work in urban areas created movement of larger
portion of the population away from location of origin and often away
from family. The trend to go abroad to study also increased immensely
(‘Year Ender 2016: Greener Pastures’, 2016). Relative lack of need for
communication that existed in Nepal in the 90s ultimately changed through
this social phenomenon by the late 2000s. The demand soared in the
communication industry (Gautam, 2016).
The key decision from the government of Nepal to privatise
Telecommunication sector in Nepal was instrumental in allowing free
competition in the telecommunication sector as well (Burton, 2003). Seeing
the potential growth in telecom sector in Nepal, the Swedish company
Telia entered the Nepalese market and Ncell – its subsidiary, eventually
became the biggest telecom company in the country. The availability of

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 E-Governance in Nepal: Progress, Challenges and Possibilities

the market and the competition between NT and Ncell to get larger share
of the market induced affordable market prices and also investment from
the private sector in development of infrastructure (Gautam, 2016; ITU,
2012). Shown in Figure 2 is the trend in mobile penetration rate in Nepal
with year-end data available from NTA plotted on a graph. The graph
shows that the mobile penetration rate sharply increased starting from
2007. Increasing from below 10%, it has reached above 120% as of end
of 2016.
Both Ncell and NT who were the biggest telecom providers invested on
making their own infrastructure while the government was also able to
invest more on infrastructure (Gautam, 2016; Minehane, 2012; ‘NTA,
NT sign agreement to lay optical fibre’, 2016).
Analysing the increase in mobile penetration rate, in comparison to the
increase in issue of work abroad permits, trend to study abroad, increase
in floating population in urban areas etc. it can be clearly seen that Nepal
was experiencing a major social-economic and cultural shift and the
previous assumptions towards digital divide and its effects on e-
Governance implementation needed to be changed. Digital divide is no
longer the case of lack of infrastructure or the people not being able to
purchase digital devices as per common understanding. Digital divide in

Figure 2: Trend for Mobile Penetration Rate in Nepal Based in Data from NTA
Source: NTA (2017)

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 Shobhit Shakya

Nepal now is concerned with possibility of effective use of digital devices

which is a situation not unique to Nepal (Lazovic and Durickovic, 2012).
M-Governance Readiness
M-Governance or mobile governance is an added layer to e-Governance
that uses mobile-enabled devices and technologies (ITU and OECD, 2011).
It is often the case that that use of mobile platform has potential towards
achieving more through e-Governance in developing countries
(Abdelghaffar and Magdy, 2012; Azad, 2011; Danish, 2006; UNDP, 2012).
With the soaring mobile usage rate in Nepal it seems to be logical to look
towards m-Governance as a possible solution to the lagging e-Governance
implementation process. There have been several additional evidences in
Nepal that hint towards the technological readiness for m-Governance in
Nepal. While the high penetration rate might already be a clear indication
of the technological readiness for m-Governance emerging trends in use
of mobile services like m-banking and telemedicine strengthens the
argument that Nepal had reached technological readiness for m-
Governance.
M-banking has been significantly used in Nepal (Sherpa, 2015). M-banking
has been seen as a convenient form of e-banking as well with 1.5 million
users already using mobile banking services provided by different
commercial banks (‘1.5m use mobile banking services’, 2016). Seeing
the demand the central bank of Nepal (Nepal Rastra Bank) has also
started to provide Payment Service Provider (PSP) license to companies
enabling them to provide mobile and online payment services to consumers
(‘67 firms seek license for payment-related services’, 2016).
Use of telemedicine is another service that has shown technological
readiness of m-Governance in Nepal. In 2011, 25 hospitals in Nepal had
a telemedicine facility, 20 with a reported expansion to five more districts
in 2012 (Morrison et al., 2013). Research conducted at these hospitals
showed that there is significant potential to use technology to address
human resources for health issues in low-income countries like Nepal
itself.
In addition to m-banking and telemedicine, there are several additional
fringe m-services operated by telecom providers, start-ups and also
government bodies. An example for this is the app developed by Curriculum

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 E-Governance in Nepal: Progress, Challenges and Possibilities

Development Centre (CDC) which is the government body responsible

for developing school curriculum in the country. CDC came up with an
android app for text books in 2016 (‘CDC launches textbook app’, 2016).
Several other government like transportation department, customs
department, Information and Communication Ministry and Ministry of
Finance among others have come up with mobile apps of various kinds
(Himalayan News Service, 2017; ‘Government of Nepal brings Media
Directory Android App|TechLekh’, 2016).
There are also evidences towards environmental readiness towards m-
Governance in Nepal with private sectors greatly investing in mobile
platforms and increased availability of skilled resources. Ncell which is
the leading telecom company in the country has started organising mobile
app competition called the ‘Ncell App Camp’ (‘Winning ideas from Ncell
App Camp 2015’, 2015). There are several other start-up idea
competitions that are being held that focuses on mobile platform as well
(‘Imagine Cup Nepal’, 2016, ‘Pivot Nepal Mobile Apps Competition’ n.d.).
It is not the situation where there is a lack of skill in Nepal. There had
been four Universities providing IT education in Nepal since early 2000s
(Shakya and Rauniar, 2002). There are several tech companies in Nepal
already and a good percentage of them are even subsidiaries of the United
States and European companies (Joshi, 2016). The general understanding
that Nepal did not have the skilled resources in ITC seems to be changing
with every passing year. There are enough evidences to suggest private
sector competency in the country that makes up for a large part of
environmental readiness for m-Governance is available. Given that the
private sector competency is one of the key factors for IT innovation and
e-Governance readiness (Kalvet, 2012; Mtingwi and Van Belle, 2013), it
is evident that Nepal has achieved a degree of environmental readiness
for m-Governance as well.

PERSISTING ISSUES FOR M-GOVERNANCE AND E-

GOVERNANCE
Even with sufficient evidences of technological readiness of m-
Governance and the possibilities seen from it, there does not seem to be
major progress on e-Governance development in Nepal nor any policy
priority towards m-Governance. The low EGDI index as per UN survey

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 Shobhit Shakya

of 2016 shows clearly that the situation of e-Governance has not improved
to a satisfactory level (United Nations Department of Economic and Social
Affairs, 2016).
Issues with the Leadership
There clearly seems to be a lack of sustained efforts towards e-
Governance development in the country. The e-Governance Master Plan
document followed by the country was prepared by Korean Internet
Technology Promotion Agency (KIPA) in 2006 and is in form of a
consultancy report rather than a formal action plan (KIPA, 2006). The
several governments that have been formed and dissolved in the volatile
political climate of Nepal have failed to realise the need for a formal
action plan for e-Governance implementation. The situation of mobile
usage in the country in 2006 when the master plan was drafted was
astronomically different from the situation now (NTA, 2006, 2016).
However, the government still has not come up with any new action plan
and as per NITC it does not have any serious work done towards
developing a new action plan as well. While the Maoist led civil war and
the peace process is to be blamed too, with a decade already passing
from the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Accord (United Nations,
2006), the in competency of the leadership has to be pointed out too.
Both NITC and NTA acknowledge the opportunity m-Governance provides
for e-Governance development but it seems the organisational structure
of the government does not support the collaboration between the two
bodies. Field visits and interviews with representatives from both the
institutions showed that there was very little coordination between the
two institutions. NTA which is concerned with telecommunication
infrastructure and NITC which is concerned with e-Governance are under
two different ministries namely the Ministry of Science and Technology
(MoST) and Ministry of Information and Communication (MoIC). An
authoritative body that would have provided a bridge between the two
ministries and also the respective agencies under them was HLCIT which
was dissolved in 2011 (Maharjan, 2015; ‘Panel directs ministry not to
dissolve HLCIT’, 2011). While there was a strong voice against the
dissolution of HLCIT, it did eventually got dissolved and e-Governance is
now overseen by Department of IT under the MoST. While a government
body chaired by the Prime Minister does exists in form of the IT Council

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 E-Governance in Nepal: Progress, Challenges and Possibilities

that looks over the governments affairs in relation to IT, the role of the IT
Council seems to be ambiguous and thus it remains ineffective.
As per representatives from NITC, the organisation is focusing more on
standardisation and providing support, training and consultation for different
government agencies and their e-services. There also has been significant
progress in infrastructure development and the agenda towards universal
broadband connectivity by the year 2020 seems promising even though
considered merely a slogan (Chautari, 2014; ‘NTA, NT sign agreement
to lay optical fibre’, 2016). There of course are several apps that have
been built by government agencies and the trends towards creating fringe
e-services seems to be popular among government agencies. However,
without a central vision and guidance these fringe services lack the
capacity to provide any meaningful value and would remain ineffective
to improve the overall e-Governance progress in the country.
Role of International Aid Agencies
The role of international agencies in development of e-Governance in
Nepal is questionable. Most e-Governance projects seem to have been
pushed forward by international agencies. E-Governance in Nepal
basically started as a proposal from IDRC under its R&D Grants Program
which paved the way for the first IP Policy of Nepal (Burton, 2003).
Further on the major influencers in e-Governance implementation in Nepal
has been ADB, KOICA, KIPA and UNDP (Adhikari, 2009; Chapagain,
2006; Chautari, 2014). While Nepal might have benefitted to certain extent
from the funding and expertise that have been available through these
international agencies, it is can be analysed that the country has not entirely
benefitted in overall.
Most projects have been ‘off-the-shelf’ projects that have lacked the
contextual relevancy for the country. For instance, the telecentres that
were started by the government of Nepal and UNDP has proven to be a
failure and of the 300 telecentres that the government funded for two
years, most had to shut down due to inability to sustain after the funds
were stopped (Harris et al., 2003; Lee and Sparks, 2014). Of the few
telecentres that were still operating one was Bungamati Telecentre
operated by Bungamati Cooperative Society in Bungamati of Lalitpur
district. Field visit to the centre showed that the telecentre was operating

Public Affairs and Governance 13

 Shobhit Shakya

only because of the school that the Cooperative Society was also
operating. The telecentre was more of a computer laboratory for school
children. Most of the computer in the telecentre were provided by
donations from NGOs. The problem with the telecentres seemed to be
the lack for the use of the telecentres initially during the 2000s when the
telecentres project was started and then later the common availability of
mobile phones with the people. Thus it seemed that the project was largely
non-contextual to the scenario in the country. While aid agencies are
important for an overall development of environmental readiness, it is the
incapability of the government in allowing the progress to be entirely aid-
driven that is hurting the e-Governance development the most.
Insufficient Attention to the Complex Socio-Cultural Context
The complex socio-cultural context of Nepal is also a major issue for m-
Governance. The e-Governance model in Nepal has been benchmarked
to the South Korean model as per the Master Plan of 2006 (KIPA, 2006).
Nepal is very diverse culturally with 92 different spoken languages in the
country (Sueyoshi et al., 2005). It was researched that Nepali language
software and website were not as popular as English ones (Hall et al.,
2009). While Nepali language is almost universally spoken in the country,
it is not the situation that the level of Nepali language is equal among all
the Nepali population. This makes standardised and formal Nepali terms
and sentences feel very unnatural for many Nepali people. In addition
there does not seem to be sufficient attention provided to the context
when designing government service delivery models. The failure of
telecentres was directly a result of failing to study the contextual
compatibility of projects. While the concept of telecentres was generally
expected to be beneficial, the lack of IT awareness among the population
during the time and also the lack of e-services available made the
telecentres more or less useless and impossible to sustain by themselves.
So as soon as the government funds stopped almost all of them stopped
functioning as well.
There seems to be an acknowledgement from NITC and other government
agencies as well regarding the lack of e-services and also the quality and
usability of the existing ones. There are several problems with government
websites and even the website belonging to Ministry of Science and
Technology (Chautari, 2014). There are also security issues with the

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 E-Governance in Nepal: Progress, Challenges and Possibilities

government websites and service delivery online portals (‘Nepal

government’s website hacked’, 2015). There is also the usability aspect
of e-services and websites. Most websites are available in English and
Nepali while almost none of the websites use other languages from regions
where Nepali is less spoken. There is also issue of gender inequality in
the country which leaves a large female population in the country without
access to digital devices even with the increased mobile penetration rate
(Shrestha, 2007). The government has largely failed to address these
issues.

CONCLUSION
Even though a Least Developed Country, Nepal was very open in adopting
ICT technologies. Nepal came up with the country’s first IT policy in the
year 2000 and this marked the progress towards e-Governance
implementation in the country. Unfavourable political scenario that
involved the decade long civil war started by the Maoists and the
consequent political transition caused the progress of e-Governance
implementation to be sluggish. The socio-economic challenges and the
resulting digital divide was studies to be the major challenge towards
implementation of e-Governance alongside the political issues during the
first 10 years from implementation of the IT policy of 2000.
A boom in mobile communication usage was seen in the late 2000s which
lead to the mobile penetration rate in the country to reach as high as
120%. The phenomenon was a direct result of socio-economic changes
involved increase in foreign labour, urbanisation and emigration of large
portion of the population. Improved economy and trends towards increased
use of mobile technology has brought about technology readiness towards
m-services. Evidences of this include increased use of mobile banking,
telemedicine and several fringe m-services. There also seems to be relative
environmental readiness with increased private sector competency and
the market for digital services.
In spite of the potential of m-Governance in making larger developmental
change in the country, Nepal as so far failed to take any advantage from
it. Even with technological readiness and the availability of private sector
competencies, the lack of proper leadership from the government it seems
the progress is very unlikely. Over dependency in development agencies

Public Affairs and Governance 15

 Shobhit Shakya

and inability of the government to independently act also seems to be

evident. The lack of vision and the responsiveness in the government is
failing the country to take benefit from the opportunity that has been
presented. Unless a miracle happens in the near future the sole blame
for a missed opportunity will be upon the leadership of the country.

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