Politics disrupts progress in Nepalese Teleco and ICT Sector

Politics in Telecom and IT
Recently Supreme Court (SC) asked Nepal Telecom Authority (NTA) board to stop nominating the board members until a final verdict. Ministry of Information and Communication (MoIC) and NTA has been involved in this political dividend of the posts. The formation of the committee in NTA was against the Telecommunication ACT – according to advocate of this hearing. Not much about this known to us – this is all politics.

Nepal Telecom Engineer’s Entrance Exam Result in Limbo
Nepal Telecom (NT) had taken an entrance exam for engineers months ago, the result of which is still in limbo. Examinees are now hopeless regarding the biased result. Like every other sector, the results will constitute, if held, in part of the parties and groups of high bureaucrats.

Government to  dissolve HLCIT
High Level Commission for Information Technology (HLCIT) – Nepal’s only government committee for Information and Technology (IT) is on the state of being dismantled by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST). Many multinational companies and foreign governments have been helping shape HLCIT and focus on IT development in Nepal. But it seems like MoST is in the verge of dissolving HLCIT to find their role in. MoST must have been in low to find their existence – as long as there is HLCIT, MoST is under the shade. Some of the high level officials think this.

The Minister of MoST has already ordered to dismantle HLCIT. They have planned to set up a new department named “Information Technology Department” under the hood of MoST. This non-sense decision of government will push the development of IT in Nepal, they don’t help neither do they appreciate the work. The politics penetrating into technology sector in Nepal is obviously not good. Dissolving HLCIT will give bad impression to people in and out of the country, and many projects running under HLCIT will be hampered. This will also impact 114 telecenters in 38 districts. (Read: IBM helps research in Nepali IT industry)

Political nominations (राजनैतिक नियुक्ति)
This is a common trend in Nepal to nominate and share high ranking posts in ministries and projects by the political parties. In stead of nominating/selecting experts of technology field, the government focuses on dividing the posts among the ruling parties and these parties tend to assign posts to those who even don’t have any qualifications of the field. Once the government changes, everything changes from rules and regulations to working committee. If the high ranking officials are not from the concerned IT field, then how would the rules and regulations go on? We don’t have to imagine, we are just seeing it live in our country.

When will our leaders and politicians understand the necessities of technology?

Disclaimer: This is a guest article. You can write for TechSansar.com – for better computing in Nepal and realizing ICT usages in our country. Click here to learn about Team TechSansar. Cartoon by RajeshKC.com – to depict the self destruction of IT by the Government.