KATHMANDU, May 14: The government has reduced the number of federal ministries to 18 to maintain administrative reforms and austerity, reduce unnecessary recurrent expenses, and boost performance.
A meeting of the Council of Ministers on Wednesday decided to lower the number of ministries from the existing 22 to 18 by approving the 'Nepal Government (Work Division) Regulations, 2083 BS'.
According to Prime Minister Balendra Shah's Press and Research Adviser, Dipa Dahal, the government has retained the Ministries of Finance, Home, Foreign Affairs, Defence, and Law, Justice, and Parliamentary Affairs.
Similarly, the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, and Supplies, the Ministry of Culture, Tourism, and Civil Aviation, and the Ministry of Energy, Water Resources, and Irrigation have also remained unchanged as per the decision.
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Prioritizing technology and innovation, the government has separated science and technology from the erstwhile Ministry of Education and established a new 'Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation' to handle newly added innovation-related tasks.
In the reorganization of other ministries, extensive adjustments have been made, merging ministries with similar functions, it is shared.
With this, there will now be the Ministry of Education and Sports, the Ministry of Communication, the Ministry of Youth, Labor, and Employment, and the Ministry of Land, Cooperative, and Human Resources.
Similarly, the Ministry of Women, Children, Gender, and Sexual Minorities and Social Security, the Ministry of Health and Food Security, the Ministry of Infrastructure Development, and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forests, and Environment have come into existence.
The information technology-related tasks, previously carried out by the former Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, are now merged into the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers.
Immediately after the formation of the new government, a plan to review the number of ministries for administrative reform and cost-cutting was put forward under the '100-Point Agenda for Government Reform.'
To implement the plan, the division of work, renaming, and merging of ministries were carried out based on the report submitted by the 'Restructuring Management Secretariat,' chaired by Secretary Govinda Bahadur Karki, adviser Dahal informed.
The move has been taken to solve the problem of high operational costs due to having more ministries than necessary and to make the state machinery more efficient.
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