Minister Sharma Expresses Dissatisfaction Over Ministry’s Performance

In a stern half-yearly review meeting held on Friday, Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Rekha Sharma, expressed her dissatisfaction with the ministry and its subordinate bodies, citing poor performance and slow progress. During the session, Minister Sharma highlighted the need for urgent reforms and emphasized the importance of meeting public service delivery expectations.

Despite the ministry’s efforts to address development issues through solution meetings and reviews, Sharma noted that the achievements were falling short. “It is not that there were no activities, but we’re not up to the mark. We failed to meet expectations. It is time to consider how we can ensure smooth public service delivery with the enforcement of the plan we prepared,” she stated.

Minister Sharma directed the chiefs of the related bodies to present reform plans and stressed the necessity of another meeting dedicated to assessing achievements and progress. She expressed concern that the underperformance reflected a lack of accountability among officials in both the ministry and its subordinate bodies.

The comprehensive review covered 10 points under policy and programs, 13 points under the budget, 42 activities under the annual work plan, 93 milestones, and 17 indicators of achievements. The report revealed that by the end of Mangsir, only 26 percent of the plan had been executed timely, 54 percent of the works were under implementation, and 19 percent of planned activities had not yet been initiated.

Specifically, critical areas such as the formulation of a data protection policy, the purchase of a national cyber drill, and the restructuring of various departments including security printing center, department of IT, and national IT center showed little progress. The ministry acknowledged its failure to initiate works on the issuance of tenders for a study on global trust in digital signatures and the purchase of software and hardware for the establishment of a cyber security center. The implementation of the Digital Nepal Framework also lagged behind in progress.

In response to the findings, Ministry Secretary Krishna Bahadur Raut directed all concerned parties to work responsibly to achieve annual targets. He stressed the importance of moving forward with planned activities, utilizing economic and administrative indicators to measure progress. Raut urged officials to demonstrate professional competence through effective performance in order to address the identified shortcomings and improve overall efficiency.