Minister Gurung directs subordinate departments and agencies to improve work efficiency

Kathmandu: Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Prithvi Subba Gurung, has directed the heads of subordinate departments and agencies of the Ministry to improve their work efficiency.

During the second quarter progress review of the current fiscal year and meeting of the ministry-level Development Action Committee, Minister Gurung stressed the need to increase the capital expenditure of the ministry. Legal and policy-level hassle is one of the reasons behind less capital expenditure, he argued, adding the Ministry had gained good achievement on some issues while hard work still needs to be done on some issues.

Also, the Spokesperson of the government, Minister Gurung expressed the view that concerned bodies and departments could also improve their work efficiency at their strength and attention should be paid to resolve problems by identifying them.

The ministry has a plan to construct an IT Park in Kathmandu, construct a building of Gorkhapatra corporation, connect entrepreneurship through AI, and manage the budget for Public Service Broadcasting this year, he added.

Similarly, National Planning Commission member, Dr Prakash Kumar Shrestha, said failure to spend capital is the major problem of the government, not only of the ministry. ‘All should pay attention to increasing capital expenditure and then only development happens.’

Likewise, the Joint Secretary at the Ministry, Kosh Hari Niraula, presented a working paper on the second quarter progress review of the fiscal year 2081/82 and ministry-level development action initiatives.

Evaluating the second quarter progress review of the ministry, the Secretary at the Ministry, Radhika Aryal, shared, ‘Though achievement was gained as per the available resources it is not satisfactory.’ All employees should be responsible to identify the problems and resolve them, she stressed. Meanwhile, RSS chief administrator Shital Mahato claimed that the agency was fulfilling 100 per cent responsibilities assigned by the Ministry.

He further shared that the RSS was effortful in enhancing the skills of its employees and bringing about structural reforms in its organization. In the meeting, Chairperson of the Public Service Broadcasting, Dr Mahendra Bista, said that the lack of budget of the PSB posed a challenge in terms of infrastructure, human resource management and increasing television broadcasting capacity.

He was of the view that the physical structures of the radio were getting worn out and due to the lack of a setup box for the reach of the television the expected returns were not achieved.

Similarly, Lal Bahadur Airi, General Manager of Gorkhapatra Corporation, shared that the digitization work of Gorkhpatra was underway. He further said that the building and other infrastructures were affecting its digitalization bid. He presented the action plans before the ministry, including preparing to publish the Gorakhpatra Journal, creating a news directory, and arranging the language edition of Gorkhpatra.

The programme was attended by the representatives of departments under the Ministry, including the National Information Commission, Postal Service Department, Information and Broadcasting Department, Printing Department, Security Printing Centre, Information Technology Department, Integrated Data Management Centre, Office of Controller of Certification, National Cyber Security Centre, Nepal Telecommunications Company Limited, Film Development Board, Advertising Board, Press Council Nepal, Minimum Wages Fixation Committee, among others.

RSS