{"id":433625,"date":"2026-08-05T21:00:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T15:15:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/radionepalonline.com\/en\/?p=433625"},"modified":"2026-08-05T21:00:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T15:15:20","slug":"probe-committee-on-purchase-of-ntv-equipment-service-finds-irregularities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radionepalonline.com\/en\/2026\/08\/05\/433625.html","title":{"rendered":"Probe committee on purchase of NTV equipment, service finds irregularities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Kathmandu:<\/strong> An investigation committee formed on the procurement of equipment and services for Nepal Television (NTV), currently a public service broadcaster, has submitted its report to the government, exposing irregularities and anomalies in the procurement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The investigation committee submitted its report to Minister for Information and Communications Dr Bikram Timilsina on Wednesday. It had investigated the procurement of digital transmitters, audio-visual and graphics systems, playout automation and online platforms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report concluded that there were illegal decisions and faulty procedures, causing financial liabilities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team found that it was ambitious and unrealistic to have timelines for analog switch off and digital switch-over, though it was said to be in line with a roadmap prepared with the assistance of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similar ambition was found in the case of planning the conversion of terrestrial television broadcasting to a completely digital system in Nepal. It is for the same reason that NTV’s broadcasting failed to move forward as per the plan of adopting completing digital switch-over. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even the budget under the title of \u2018Archive Digitisation\u2019 for the fiscal year 2079\/80BS was used as a project of the previous year giving the title of audio-video equipment in the fiscal years 2080\/81 and 2081\/82. It was a breach of the rules and opening LCs from the same budget to proceed with the procurement process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other activities capable of creating long-term financial liabilities were also exposed by the probe. NTV Board of Directors decided to allocate Rs 48.7 million from internal sources to manage the purchase of audio and video devices without taking prior approval from the line Ministry, thereby creating additional financial burden on the organization’s internal budget. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

NTV is operating the service internally even after the expiry of the five-year contract for operating the digital platform in 2024. A legal fault was found in the evaluation process of the bid made for purchasing graphics systems (NTV 074\/75-11). Importantly, the contract was awarded to the bid which had failed the technical specifications. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The officials and employees involved in the procurement agreement acted illegally for the contract signed and document was tampered in case of making a party to Soheto Singapore Pte Ltd on October 4, 2018. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

LC was opened, and payments were made in line with the tampered agreement. Even the policy-level recommendations are furnished to the Ministry and Nepal Television in order to avoid such problems in the future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The current roadmap enforced for digital terrestrial television broadcasting should be reviewed, the probe team suggested, adding that a timely and practical broadcasting development roadmap should be in place with proper coordination in case of terrestrial, satellite, fibre and OTT systems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The competition between domestic suppliers should be given priority while purchasing technical equipment available in Nepal. Reasoning that the activities were found irregular and illegal as per the Corruption Prevention Act, 2059, the probe committee recommended action to those involved in irregularities in line with Clause 14 (1) of the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority Act, 2048. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ministry of Information and Communications had formed a four-member probe panel under the coordination of Dr Sudip Bhattarai on June 15 to conduct a rigorous study on complaints and public concern in the procurement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

RSS<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The investigation committee submitted its report to Minister for Information and Communications Dr Bikram Timilsina on Wednesday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":433626,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,3,4,2],"tags":[],"reporter":[],"class_list":["post-433625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-en-cover","category-english","category-en-news","category-top-stories-main"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radionepalonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433625"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radionepalonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radionepalonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radionepalonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radionepalonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433625"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radionepalonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":433627,"href":"https:\/\/radionepalonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433625\/revisions\/433627"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radionepalonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radionepalonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radionepalonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radionepalonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433625"},{"taxonomy":"reporter","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radionepalonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/reporter?post=433625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}