Digital payments mandatory for government utilities

Kathmandu, Dec. 30

In an effort to promote cashless payment and sound fiscal governance, the government is making utility payments – internet, electricity, and water supply – online.

Finance Minister Rameshore Prasad Khanal said on Tuesday that in the past 110 days since he assumed office, the Ministry of Finance has made preparations for an Application Programming Interface (API), which has reached the final stage.

It will be launched on Wednesday by the Kathmandu Upatyaka Khanepani Limited (KUKL) and the remaining agencies will implement it by mid-January 2026.

At a high-level policy dialogue on 'fiscal reform and budget priorities for reconstruction and economic revival' organised by the Former Planners Forum Nepal (FPFN) in Lalitpur on Tuesday, he expressed confidence that electronic payments would put an end to the practice of having to carry bills and run from one office to another.

According to him, the government has made it mandatory for all payments to be conducted through electronic systems to ensure sound fiscal governance. Billions of rupees is due from the government organisations to utility agencies like the KUKL and Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA).

Likewise, Minister Khanal informed that the records of government buildings and other structures are updated so that a realistic budget could be planned for their repair and maintenance accordingly.

The Financial Comptroller General Office (FCGO) has submitted a report on the public assets management system to the Ministry of Finance (MoF).

According to him, contracts worth Rs. 992 billion are in the phase of implementation. There is no cash deficit because the government budget allocations could not be utilised to their fullest, he added.

"In coordination with the National Planning Commission (NPC), we are initiating a system of giving permits to multi-year projects. All details of such projects will also be available to the government so that year-wise allocations can be assured," said Minister Khanal. Currently, the government has around Rs. 700 billion multi-year commitment.

He also informed that there is no lack of funds for the election and economic recovery.

He said the government needs Rs. 26 billion to hold the elections-- Rs. 6.9 billion as pure election disbursement and Rs. 17 billion for term-police, while vehicles and riot-controlling equipment are being supported by friendly countries.

Vice-President of the NPC, Dr. Prakash Kumar Shrestha, said that Nepal has bureaucratic instability along with political instability.
"During my previous 13-month tenure at the NPC, I had to work with four joint-secretaries," he said.

He said that although the project bank at the NPC was created professionally, its implementation was very poor. Of the 1,300 projects, only about one or two dozen had completed the requirement of Detail Project Report, Environmental Impact Assessment and budgeting before entering into the project bank.

Chair of FPFN and former VC of the NPC Dr. Pushpa Raj Kandel, expressed concerns that while the NPC was created as an institution to advise the government, but it has become subservient to the government, even the Finance Ministry.

Economist Dr. Sanjaya Acharya said that transformative progress needs decades of preparation, planning, and resource allocation, which Nepal has been missing for many years in the past. "Even the long-term vision for 2100 prepared by the National Planning Commission in 2017 has been forgotten by the governments afterwards," he said.

He also said that the long-term development vision should also include the creation of cross-border development plans, such as the Trans-Himalayan Connectivity Network proposed by China with Nepal.

At the programme, former member of the NPC Dr. Dilli Raj Khanal presented a working paper focusing on the weaknesses in Nepal’s fiscal system and the areas that require reform.

Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 31 December 2025.