Post Report

KATHMANDU, Jan 25: His Majesty’s Government is putting together an official website to enable easy access to government activities, policies, objectives, and projects, officials said.

The web site www.most.gov.np, will host all the relevant information of all the government ministries and departments. Officials at the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST), which is carrying out the initiative, hope that the website will be the first step towards e-governance in Nepal.

“The Ministry has already sent secretary level letters to government ministries and respective departments asking to send information on a floppy disk to be stored on the web site,” said Rewati Raj Kafle, spokesperson at the MoST.

The initiative is a part of the government Information Technology Policy 2000, which proposes an HMG website along with other plans for the development of information technology in the country.

Though touted as a e-governance project, it is unclear whether the website will make government working transparent, the goal of any e-governance initiative. Officials however say, it will.

But the slow pace of government action is causing delays. According to Deepak Shrestha, an officer at MoST, the deadline to the ministries and departments for furnishing information has already expired, but very few ministries has responded with their contents for the site. MoST had sent letters to the government ministries and departments last month to send relevant information within 15 days.

“If the Ministries provide us their respective contents for the site, it will be accessible within two months,” adds Shrestha.

When the site becomes operative, policy of government, objectives of the government ministries, ongoing programmes and projects of the ministries, who is who at the ministries above officer level, organisational structure, vision, etc. will be accessible through the site.

The site will also incorporate information and date of the constitutional bodies in the country, according to Shrestha.

However, some of the government offices like Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Population and Environment, Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation, National Planning Commission, Election Commission have already gone on the net. The Supreme Court is preparing to go through a net linked with private Internet Service Providers. All these sites will now be hosted by the MoST website.

MoST officials say, they are also planning to make accessible regional offices on the net in the next phase. After that will come district level offices.

Meanwhile, MoST is also considering developing a system of exchanging letters between ministries through the net, as well as build a computerized database of all files, but is facing a budget crunch to finance the ambitious projects.