Nepal Weekly

Nepal Weekly - 2026-07-22

Wed, 22 Jul 2026 04:40:22 GMT

Nepal business, finance and trade news, every Wednesday.

PM Scraps Tax via Facebook

The 3% equity fee on private education and health services lasted three weeks. Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle wrote it into the budget for fiscal year 2026/27, effective Shrawan 1, to fund nutrition programs for Dalit and marginalized children, expand health insurance and improve public schools. Private school, college and hospital operators started protesting as soon as the budget was announce, so on July 21, the PM announced on Facebook that the fee would not be implemented "for now," offering instead a 10% quota of free beds at private hospitals and 10% scholarship seats at private colleges for disadvantaged groups. Wagle says the suspension will needs Cabinet endorsement to take legal effect, since the fee was introduced under Section 18 of the Financial Act. Gen-Z movement leader Rabi Kiran Hamal welcomed the reversal but said that tax policy "cannot be amended through social media announcements," and asked why a major policy call came from the PM's personal Facebook rather than from the Finance Ministry.

Nepal Posts Steepest Peace Score Drop

Nepal fell 26 places to 111th out of 163 countries in the 2026 Global Peace Index, the largest single-year deterioration of any nation, a 9.1 percent collapse the Institute for Economics and Peace says is exceptionally rare. Almost every other situation resulting in a plunge like this involves a civil war, coup or insurgency. The index connects most of the damage to last September's Gen Z unrest, when security forces killed at least 76 people, including police personnel, injured more than 2,000, and saw parliament burned to the ground. Balendra Shah, the rapper-turned-engineer who took office in March as the country's youngest prime minister on the back of that uprising, is now watching the same generation turn on him. Protesters have massed in Kathmandu over riverside evictions, police conduct, and the self-immolation of 25-year-old ride-share driver Ganesh Nepali, who set himself on fire after a dispute with traffic police over a fine he couldn’t afford. Some demonstrators are now demanding Shah's resignation.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (conflict indicators breakdown)

Case Clearance Falls as Courts Rebuild from Arson

The Supreme Court settled less than a third of its caseload in fiscal 2025-26, down from 42% the year before, as the judiciary tries to function without the benefit of 936,000 case files that were burned during the September protests. Twenty-three court premises were damaged (ten were destroyed outright). Hearings were effectively frozen for nearly four months after central servers went down, an outage severe enough to stall courts that didn’t suffer directly from the arson, including the Patan High Court. In Gandaki, recovery teams been able to retreive 3,307 of the 6,126 documents lost, mostly by asking district attorneys and litigants for their copies.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (economic loss), myRepublica (court breakdown)

Court Punts Ncell Deal to Regulator

The Supreme Court dismissed a writ seeking to void Ncell's 80 percent share transfer, but stopped short of blessing the deal as it gave the Nepal Telecommunications Authority a task of finishing a job that politicians and bureaucrats have dodged for nearly three years. The verdict, published this week, points the Authority to Section 47 of the Telecommunications Act, which lets it fine license violations rather than unwinding them. If Ncell pays a fine and submits the documents the Authority says are still missing, the transaction will get formally recognized. No fine amount has been set, and no timeline was given.

Read more: Ratopati

Usury Becomes a Serious Economic Crime

The Home Minister’s team agreed to classify usury as a serious economic crime, invalidate fraudulent loan documents, and draft a special law within three months, with a tribunal formed to hear cases. The deal comes after weeks of talks after victims marched from Janakpur, and covers forged promissory notes, coerced cheques, and land transfers signed under duress, as well as compensation and a path to get seized property returned to the rightful owners.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (task force timeline), The Kathmandu Post (district recovery statistics)

Foreign Tuition Blows Out Service Trade Balance

The service trade balance flipped from a Rs 9.85 billion ($65 million) surplus in FY 2015-16 to a Rs 90.94 billion ($598 million) deficit in FY 2024-25, mostly because of foreign tuition costs. Nepalis spent Rs 138.48 billion ($911 million) on education abroad last year, at a rising clip of about 18 percent yearly over the past three years. IT services, the sector that was expected (was hoped?) to close the gap, brought in Rs 22.33 billion ($147 million), or 9.36 percent of total service exports.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Rapeseed Rides Reopened Rail to Biratnagar

A CONCOR freight train pulled into Biratnagar's customs yard on Tuesday carrying 1,070 tons of Australian rapeseed in 40 containers, the first third-country cargo to clear Nepal's customs point since June 2023. The shipment travelled a route that barely existed on paper until November 2025, when India's customs board changed their tracking rules to allow rail cargo from Kolkata, Haldia and Visakhapatnam to run to Biratnagar instead of getting stopped at Birgunj. Nepal finalized its part of the arrangements in February. The Morang Trade Organization claims that the resulting freight savings will be up to 40% when compared to road transport costs.

Read more: Daily Sun (Nautanwa route), Spotlight Nepal (Sharada)

Lumbini's Hotel Boom Waits for a Runway

Rupandehi built for a boom that never came as investors sunk Rs 100 billion ($658 million) into roughly 2,100 hotels around Lumbini since the airport there started construction in early 2015. The region is now home to 13 star-rated properties, three of them five-star (Hyatt Palace in Butwal, Tiger Palace in Bhairahawa, and Siddhartha Vilasa), in addition to 10 four-stars built on the promise of direct international flights to Buddha's birthplace. Eleven years later, and the airport still isn't pulling the international traffic investors were promised, leaving roughly 300 large tourist hotels, 700 mid-sized properties, and 1,000 small hotels, farm stays and restaurants competing for a fraction of the visitors the plans assumed.

Read more: myRepublica

Japan's Tunnel Opens But China's Road Stalls

Kathmandu's first road tunnel got its public debut on Saturday, a "Fun Run and Walk" through the Nagdhunga-Sisnekhola bore ahead of trial operations on July 27. Tolls are now set at Rs 65 ($0.43) inbound for cars and Rs 260 ($1.71) for buses and heavy trucks. Motorcycles and pedestrians are barred entry. Ten kilometers away, the Chakrapath expansion has not yet started. Two months after Nepal and China signed an Rs 11 billion ($72 million) agreement on May 16 for the 8.2-kilometer Kalanki-Basundhara stretch, the road is still a field of mud and weeds, with contractor selection still waiting on Chinese authorities under the terms of the grant.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (toll schedule), Ratopati

Monsoon Leaves Seven Highways Shut

Seven highways are completely blocked and 12 more are allowing only partial traffic as landslides and flash floods have pinned down transport. The Mechi, Kanti, Diktel-Bhojpur and Araniko highways are still shut, as is the Tatopani road at Jurikhola in Bhotekoshi Rural Municipality-4, as machinery grinds through debris. Police reported two deaths and 15 injuries over 24 hours, interestingly, snakebites caused both fatalities and 11 of the injuries. With a Bay of Bengal low keeping the monsoon trough parked north of the Tarai, authorities have started to open the Koshi Barrage gates and have placed 21 districts on moderate flood alert.

Read more: myRepublica (landslide locations), The Annapurna Express (spokesperson quotes), Spotlight Nepal (rainfall forecast), Online Khabar (economic loss)

Electricity Dept Gives Survey Permits for 3,211 MW

The Department of Electricity Development issued survey permits for 99 hydropower projects of 3,211 MW and seven solar projects of 311 MW in fiscal year 2082/83, in addition to production permits for 29 hydropower projects of 1,857 MW. That brings the total to 264 hydropower projects with production permits for a combined 12,336 MW, plus transmission survey permits for 581 circuit kilometers in the 220 kV, 132 kV, and 33 kV classes. The department collects roughly Rs 3.5 billion ($23 million) a year in royalties, split between provincial and local governments.

Nepal Weekly - 2026-07-15

Wed, 15 Jul 2026 05:36:06 GMT

Nepal business, finance and trade news, every Wednesday.

Photo by Nirajan Dhakal on Unsplash

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Self-Immolation Sparks Crisis

The death of 25-year-old ride-share driver Ganesh Nepali, who set himself on fire outside Kathmandu's Department of Passports after municipal police clamped his motorcycle and fined him Rs 1,000 ($7), has become the first serious test of Prime Minister Balendra Shah's government. Nepali died at Bir Hospital from burns covering almost two-thirds of his body. After negotiations, the government and Kathmandu Metropolitan City signed a nine-point agreement with the family that promises an independent probe, suspension of the officers involved, a job for Nepali's wife, education support for his daughter, and consideration of martyr status.

Supreme Court Strikes Down Ad Order

The Supreme Court has struck down the government's April 1 order that limits state advertising to government-owned outlets. The Cabinet also named Umesh Shrestha, formerly editor of Nepal Fact Check, as Press Council chair, replacing Kumar Sharma Acharya, who was removed along with the rest of the board. A protest also took place when drivers parked private vehicles at the main gates of Kantipur in Tinkune, OnlineKhabar in Buddhanagar and Himalaya Television in mid-Baneshwor, then ran away; the Bhat-Bhateni outlet in Anamnagar and Nepali Congress President Gagan Thapa's Ratopul residence were blockaded the same way. The vehicles ended up being parked from 7am until traffic police brought in cranes to get them moved in the afternoon, but interestingly FNJ president Nirmala Sharma is saying the blockades are a state effort, and the federation claims that police stood by as "silent spectators" as it went down.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (ruling justices), Online Khabar (Shrestha background), The Himalayan Times (vehicle ownership)

Floods Shut Rasuwagadhi, Cut Off Three Districts

Chitwan's Narayani Field Office gauge reported 319.8mm of rain in 24 hours and flooding cut roads on three fronts. The Mechi Highway's Golakharka-Rajduwali stretch caved in, cutting Ilam, Panchthar and Taplejung off from Jhapa indefinitely. Both Kathmandu-Hetauda links (the Kanti Lokpath and the Hetauda-Sisneri road) were shut Monday evening as rivers rose and landslide risks grew. At Rasuwagadhi, engineers closed the tunnel gate and stopped generation at the 111 MW plant on Sunday night after a mud-laden flood made its way to the Lhende Khola, almost a year after the river last tore through the dam.

Read more: Online Khabar (rainfall station count), Online Khabar (Bailey bridge tools), The Himalayan Times (closure timing), Spotlight Nepal (crane dispatch)

Deficit Blown Out

The treasury closed FY 2025/26 with a Rs 344 billion ($2.26 billion) deficit, almost entirely because of a capital spending collapse. Of the Rs 407.88 billion ($2.68 billion) set aside for capital projects, ministries managed to spend Rs 181.59 billion ($1.19 billion) (44.52%), by July 11, 15% points below last year's already weak performance. Recurrent spending flowed a bit more easily - 88% of the Rs 1.181 trillion ($7.76 billion) budget for salaries, pensions and administrative costs went out the door on time. Public debt is Rs 2.961 trillion ($19.5 billion), (44.87% of GDP). Revenue collection missed the mark again also, bringing in Rs 1.184 trillion ($7.78 billion) against a Rs 1.48 trillion ($9.72 billion) goal.

Read more: myRepublica (spending breakdown), myRepublica (past summits)

NEPSE Sheds $592 Million in a Week

Nepal Stock Exchange closed at 2,570.18 on July 13, its lowest showing in eight months, ending a week that wiped Rs 90 billion ($592 million) off market capitalization. All 13 sectoral indices finished the July 6-10 stretch in the red, finance lead the drop at 3 percent. Volume rose as prices fell. Monday's turnover was Rs 7.46 billion ($49 million), and one session during the week saw a 35-month high of Rs 15.54 billion ($102 million).

Read more: myRepublica (company gainers/losers), The Kathmandu Post (analyst outlook), The Himalayan Times (sector breakdown)

Loan-Shark Victims March as Warrants Wait

Roughly 300 loan-shark victims from 35 districts are marching from Janakpur to Kathmandu, making headway of about 25 kilometers a day through monsoon mud and landslides, to demand action the Prime Minister promised on his campaign trail. In Dhanusha district, more than 2,500 complaints and arrest warrants have been issued. Not against the moneylenders (silly you for thinking that!), but against the borrowers.

Read more: myRepublica

Idle Hydro Licensees Put on Notice

Energy Minister Biraj Bhakta Shrestha told the newly elected IPPAN executive committee that developers who hold hydropower licenses without building anything will be reviewed, categorized, and “dealt with.” Having a license without construction is "unacceptable," he said, and IPPAN should not defend it. No timeline was given for the review. IPPAN presented a 38-point wishlist for PPA reform, private investment in transmission lines, and a more investment-friendly Electricity Act. Shrestha also said that a proposal for an Energy Attaché at Nepal's embassy in New Delhi has already gone to the Foreign Ministry. IPPAN president Mohan Dangi says the private sector could meet the 30,000 MW target within a decade if policy support can be finalized.

Read more: Spotlight Nepal

Gandaki Legalizes Cannabis Farming

Gandaki Province Assembly unanimously passed a bill to legalize cannabis cultivation for medicinal and industrial use. It’s the first opening in a prohibition that goes back half a century to 1976. Growers will need a license (five years), CCTV and fencing, as well as a clean drug record for the past decade. Cultivation is expected to be limited to districts designated by the provincial government. A Chief Minister-led steering committee, including the ministers for agriculture, health, industry and forests, in addition to a new Cannabis Cultivation Regulation and Management Unit, will manage permits and compliance. Hitches in the plan include word from researchers who say that commercial licensing and hybrid seed could displace Nepal's undocumented hillside cannabis landraces before they are able to fully catalog them, as well as fear that the law could sit idle unless the provincial government puts forward proper implementation rules in a timely fashion.

Read more: Aninews IN (THC cap), The Kathmandu Post (landrace conservation), myRepublica (violation fines)

Study-Abroad Agents Need Cash Deposit

Cabinet approved two regulations that end years of lax oversight for businesses sending Nepali students overseas. Education consultancies will now be required to post a Rs 2.5 million ($16,400) cash deposit before they can open, foreign ownership is barred (existing foreign-invested firms have a year to transfer to Nepali nationals), and consultancies whose advice results in a student stranded abroad or at an illegal college will now liable for financial damages. The 49 foreign-affiliated colleges already operating in Nepal will get 36 months to prove their partner university is qualified, but the rules include stipulations that mean most will miss. Colleges that fail to get their house in order within the three-year deadline will lose their license.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (licensed consultancy count), The Himalayan Times (event fee rules)

CIB Nabs Resort Chairman

Nepal's CIB arrested Asian Village Resort chairman Shashidhar Sharma over a Rs 480 million ($3.2 million) Prabhu Bank loan taken to build a resort and buy land. Instead of mortgaging the land as required, the company signed an undertaking to do so later and then sent the money to pay off debts of the chairman's relatives and other companines in the group. Investigators have also raised the specter of “suspicious” transactions between Sharma and former Finance Minister Bishnu Paudel, whose has been detained with custody already extended several times.

India-Nepal Energy Talks Without Progress

India's Power Secretary Pankaj Agarwal and Nepal's Energy Secretary Sarita Dawadi are meeting in Kathmandu to work through the mechanics of January's 10,000 MW long-term export agreement. The Joint Working Group and Joint Steering Committee sessions have so far resulted in the presentation of no new numbers or even an agreed-to schedule, six months after S. Jaishankar's visit produced the “deal,” a renewables MoU, and the inauguration of three cross-border transmission lines.

Nepal Weekly - 2026-07-08

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 03:10:19 GMT

Nepal business, finance and trade news, every Wednesday.

Photo by Nirajan Dhakal on Unsplash

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Court Convicts Two in Fake Refugee Scam

Three years after prosecutors filed charges against 30 people, the Kathmandu District Court on Tuesday convicted 23 of them, including former Deputy Prime Minister Top Bahadur Rayamajhi and former Home Minister Bal Krishna Khand, for a scheme that sold hundreds of Nepalis fake passage to the United States as Bhutanese refugees. Rayamajhi was guilty of organized fraud and crimes against the state; Khand was convicted only as an accomplice, a lesser charge that could mean a lighter sentence when sentencing is handed down on July 13. The convictions also covered former Home Secretary Tek Narayan Pandey, security adviser Indrajit Rai, and alleged ringleaders Keshav Prasad Dulal and Sanu Bhandari. Seven defendants walked, including Rayamajhi's son Sanjeev and Pratik Thapa, on “insufficient evidence.” The scam ran for years inside the shell of a legitimate humanitarian program meant for Bhutanese refugees who'd spent decades in eastern Nepal's camps.

Read more: Nepal News (court record fire), The Rising Nepal (Teknath Rijal verdict), Khabarhub (BS filing date), Nepal News (full names list), The Annapurna Express (fraud total amount)

NRB Holds Rates and Orders More Lending

Governor Bishwonath Poudel published a monetary policy for FY 2026/27 that leaves the benchmark rate at 4.5 percent, unchanged for two years, while banks are getting told to expand lending by Rs 652 billion ($4.3 billion) to support the government's 7 percent growth target. Private-sector credit is expected to grow 11 percent, broad money supply 14 percent, and inflation is expected to be limited to 5.5 percent (although that’s a number that’s vulnerable to Indian price pressure and any new flare-up in West Asia). The central bank's economists put growth last year at 3.85 percent, below the 4.2 percent potential, meaning the 7 percent goal requires a jump few forecasters outside Kathmandu are expecting to materialize. Public debt was reported at Rs 2.96 trillion ($19.5 billion) in the first 11 months of FY 2025/26 (44.9 percent of GDP), up from roughly Rs 2.01 trillion ($13.3 billion) four years ago, with only about a third of this year's capital budget spent.

Read more: The Rising Nepal (existing loan base), Ratopati (rate corridor), The Himalayan Times (growth drivers), The Himalayan Times (external vs internal debt)

Government Claims 87% Progress as NEPSE Slides

Spokesperson Sasmit Pokharel told reporters Saturday that Prime Minister Balendra Shah's government has reached 87.2 percent progress on its 100-point governance agenda, with 70 items done, 17 more than four-fifths complete, and 13 lagging. The same period saw the NEPSE index slide from 2,879 to 2,652.93 points, erasing nearly Rs 350 billion ($2.3 billion) in investor wealth as market capitalization dropped from Rs 4.894 trillion ($32.2 billion) to Rs 4.543 trillion ($29.9 billion). The FY 2026/27 budget included no new capital-market measures and no expanded pool of institutional investors. The Cabinet also formed an asset-investigation commission under the Commission of Inquiry Act to look into illegal wealth held by political office-holders and senior officials going back about 20 years.

Read more: Online Khabar (money-laundering cases), myRepublica (agenda breakdown), myRepublica (turnover)

Ex-NTA Chair Jha Convicted, Basnet Walks

The Special Court convicted former Nepal Telecommunications Authority chairman Digambar Jha and two former members, Dhanraj Gyawali and Tika Upreti, on corruption in the Teramocs procurement case, fining each of them Rs 50,000 ($329) and giving six-12 month jail terms. Seventeen co-defendants walked, including former Communications Minister Mohan Bahadur Basnet and former NTA chair Purushottam Khanal.

Read more: myRepublica

Draft Water Bill Sets 15% River Minimum

A draft Water Resources Bill would replace the 1992 Act and require dam operators to release more water. The draft demands at least 15 percent of a river's minimum flow downstream (up from the 10 percent set by the 2001 Hydropower Development Policy), or the amount specified by an environmental impact assessment, whichever is higher. It also gives the Water and Energy Commission power over river allocation, which with recentralizes decision-making.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (federal-provincial thresholds), Spotlight Nepal (50-point plan), Datacenterdynamics (curtailed power use)

Pokhara Airport Lands Its First International Route

Flydubai and Pokhara tourism operators met Sunday to plot how to keep daily Dubai flights alive once they begin September 23. The route is the first scheduled international service at an airport that's flown nothing but domestic traffic since its Rs 22 billion ($145 million) opening on New Year’s Day, 2023. Flydubai says the route will connect Pokhara to London, New York and Tokyo by way of onward links, and the Pokhara Chamber of Commerce has promised private-sector support to keep the flights viable. No passenger targets were shared.

Read more: myRepublica

ADB Lends $165 Million for Pipes and Paperwork

The Asian Development Bank signed two loan agreements worth $165 million with the finance ministry on July 6, split between $115 million in concessional lending for water supply and sewerage upgrades and $50 million in policy-based lending that’s being tied to customs reform. The water bit will support work in 13 municipalities and is expected to directly benefit more than 850,000 people, mostly in fast-growing towns where sanitation systems haven't kept pace. The customs portion is the second subprogram of the South Asia Subregional Economic Cooperation Customs and Logistics Reforms Program, and is intended to speed up trade processing and support job creation. No project completion dates were shared.

Rasuwagadhi Back Online at Two-Thirds Power

The 111 MW Rasuwagadhi Hydropower Project resumed feeding the national grid this month, a year after the July 2025 Lhende River flood tore through it, causing Rs 3.5 billion ($23 million) in damage. A new gate system now filters river water before it hits the tunnel, and the company says the plant can run at full capacity. NEA has it capped at 74 MW anyway, saying domestic demand is too low to run it any harder.

Read more: myRepublica

Monsoon Floods Cut Karnali Supply Routes

The Bheri Corridor has sat closed since July 1, when floodwaters ripped through Rukum Paschim's Rejegar river, and a landslide at Maluwa in Nalagaad municipality has now blocked the Jajarkot-Dolpa road, cutting supply routes across Karnali Province as the monsoon rains keep coming. Home Minister Sudhan Gurung has promised zero monsoon deaths this year, backed by 54 temporary response bases and 16 permanent disaster management units.

Read more: The Annapurna Express (police advisory), The Kathmandu Post (death toll count), The Kathmandu Post (relief fund)

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

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Nepal Weekly - 2026-07-01

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 05:20:34 GMT

Nepal business, finance and trade news, every Wednesday.

Photo by Sylwia Bartyzel on Unsplash

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Half a Million Passports Have Nowhere to Go

Fewer than 45,000 passport booklets remain in the Department of Passports vault, with applications running at five to six thousand per day. The government cannot agree on what to do with the 550,000 booklets already sitting in the vault, supplied by German firms Veridos GmbH and Muehlbauer ID Service GmbH and now untouchable because of an ongoing corruption case. The CIAA filed charges against passport department officials and the German companies' local representatives within a week of finishing its investigation, an unusually quick turn for a procurement case this size, and critics are asking whether the PM's Office, which pushed the probe and has been issuing verbal instructions to department officials to cancel the contract, had a hand in the rush. Germany summoned Nepal's acting ambassador in Berlin to complain that the charges rest on assumptions rather than evidence, and warned that cancellation could expose Kathmandu to compensation claims. IDEMIA, the French company that has supplied Nepal's passports since 2010, is preparing to exit within days.

Read more: Ratopati (PMO vs Foreign Ministry), The Kathmandu Post (German diplomatic pressure), Nepal News ($10.13B contract), The Kathmandu Post (July 19 deadline), The Himalayan Times (IDEMIA vs Veridos bid)

Food Paste for the Taking

A government survey of more than a million children aged six months to five years, carried out over three weeks in May, found wasting rates of 12.3% in Madhesh Province, well above the WHO's 10% threshold for "high" and the worst figure in the country. Nationally, 7.8% of children are wasting and 17.4% are underweight. The numbers were shared a little more than a year after USAID's closure shuttered a $72 million, five-year Helen Keller International program that was meant to cover almost 9 million people. The government still stocks Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food, the high-calorie paste used to treat acute malnutrition. What stopped was the community outreach, with health workers going door to door, identifying children, and getting families into clinics. Helen Keller has since pulled together almost $5 million from other donors, which is enough money to reach 223,000 people over nine districts.

Takes the Bells It Didn't Ring For

After months of inter-agency deadlock, Nepal has agreed to accept six Bell helicopters from Washington under a Rs 15 billion ($100 million) Foreign Military Financing grant, even though the Army has spent considerable effort lobbying for something else. The Prime Minister's Office, Foreign Ministry, Defence Ministry, and Army Headquarters had put forward a counter-proposal in late April asking for aerial cranes and heavy-lift helicopters capable of slinging steel beams, concrete, and HVAC units to remote construction sites instead. The Finance Ministry declined to rule on the substitution, saying in-kind aid was Defence's call, and the ministers traded the matter back and forth until Finance effectively forced Defence's hand. Army chief Ashok Sigdel brokered a compromise after US officials repeatedly raised the issue with both the Army and the defence ministry. The final agreement came only after certain "national security-related" terms were stripped from the US proposal.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

FIFA Gives Nepal a Red Card

FIFA suspended ANFA indefinitely on June 24, stripping Nepal's national and club teams of all international competition rights after the National Sports Council spent months doing the one thing FIFA explicitly forbids. It ran a football federation by government decree. The NSC suspended ANFA's executive committee on March 25, blocked its elections, and kept officials from traveling to the AFC Congress, the FIFA Congress in Vancouver, and the FIFA World Cup opener in Mexico on June 11. FIFA flew delegates to eastern Nepal in March to watch an election that never happened, extended flexibility it rarely offers anyone, and sent warnings for months. By Thursday afternoon, ANFA's Satdobato offices were empty, security guards stringing rope across an entrance where the main gate had been removed for renovation.

Read more: The Himalayan Times (reinstatement conditions), The Kathmandu Post (FIFA member rights lost), myRepublica (NSC response)

Delhi Finds the Wires Full

Nepal and Bangladesh agreed last November to add 20 MW to the 40 MW already flowing between them via Indian transmission lines, with a June 15 start date that came and went. India's Central Electricity Authority told the Nepal Electricity Authority that only 30-40 MW of spare capacity exists on the link, and that squeezing in another 20 MW would leave 15-20 MW of buffer on a line already carrying roughly 3,000 MW of Indian power to Bangladesh. NEA spokesperson Rajan Dhakal says the export isn't technically impossible, but risky enough that India wants the matter kicked to a secretary-level meeting of the Joint Steering Committee.

Read more: Spotlight Nepal

Tokyo Dreams Lead to Tokyo Graves

Sixty-seven Nepali citizens died in Japan in the ten months between mid-July 2025 and June 1, 2026, including 25 suicides. Most were student-visa holders moonlighting in construction, Nepal-run restaurants and hotels, and supply companies. Japan caps their working hours at 28 per week, which NRNA Japan secretary Sachin Acharya is not enough time to earn enough to cover rent, food, and tuition. Repatriating a body costs around Rs 1.2 million ($7,900), and the Foreign Employment Board won't cover it because student-visa workers are not registered through formal labour channels. In some cases, the embassy isn't even told after cremation. Nepal is now the second-largest source of foreign students in Japan (behind China), with about 116,000 there by 2025. Around 6,000 Nepal-run hotels and restaurants are thought to be running in Japan.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Wagle Pulls the Plug on the Power Tax

Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle backed off a proposed 5% VAT on electricity on Thursday, telling the House of Representatives the government would lift the 50-unit monthly threshold before any levy kicked in, sparing ~95% of consumers. Taxing clean power, he said, would also contradict Nepal's commitment to the UNFCCC to reach net-zero by 2045. The House has since passed both the Finance Bill and the Public Debt Bill ahead of the 2026/27 budget. Wagle defended the push as overdue formalization of an electricity sector that has absorbed hundreds of billions of rupees in investment, while reminding lawmakers that previous governments ducked the call because it was unpopular.

Read more: Spotlight Nepal (VAT withdrawal), Nepal News (Public Debt Bill)

Eight Days to Spend a Mountain

The government has spent 35% of its Rs 407.88 billion ($2.68 billion) capital budget with eight working days left before payment authority expires on July 9. Reaching even the revised annual target of 61.63% now means burning through Rs 13.52 billion ($89 million) a day; the original target would require an impossible Rs 33.08 billion ($218 million) daily. Revenue is running at its own pace - collections are Rs 1.112 trillion ($7.3 billion), or 75% of target, with a Rs 367.5 billion ($2.42 billion) gap still to close.

Read more: Nepal News (capital spending deadline), The Himalayan Times (revenue breakdown)

One Percent, One Bad Day

A 1% transfer tax on share purchases tucked into the draft Company Act 2026 spooked the market before anyone had time to read the fine print. NEPSE, already six days into a losing streak, fell another 16.54 points on June 29 as 240 companies declined and daily turnover dropped to Rs 2.67 billion ($17.6 million) from Rs 3.94 billion ($25.9 million) in the previous session. The provision was yanked the same afternoon, but the damage had already been done.

Read more: Nepal News (draft Act provisions), myRepublica (sector-level declines)

Monsoon, Bird Flu, and Dead Pigs Arrive on Schedule

The monsoon is barely two weeks old and already 570,000 birds have been culled in 11 districts, and 250 pigs have died of African swine fever in Gorkha. Bird flu, tracked last week to the Central Zoo, has now been confirmed at 82 spots, with the Department of Livestock Services blaming crows as the primary vector. Infected birds can carry H5N1 for up to 21 days and often die in unknown locations, making containment a losing game. Within the Kathmandu Valley, Kirtipur and Kageshwori Manohara are the last municipalities where the outbreak is still active. On the roads, the Besisahar-Chame highway is currently going dark from 6 pm to 6 am daily under a two-week closure order.

Read more: myRepublica (at-risk projections), Online Khabar (culling scale), Online Khabar (farm-level losses), Khabarhub (standby equipment), The Annapurna Express (night closure terms)

The Party of Fresh Starts Can't Start on Time

Rabi Lamichhane's Rastriya Swatantra Party wrapped its first national convention last week having accomplished most of what it set out to do, and a fair bit it didn't. Lamichhane was re-elected president unopposed. What was billed as a three-day convention in Bharatpur ran six days, procedural confusion and rising accommodation costs drove delegates home early, and by the time Friday's office-bearer voting concluded only 1,289 of the more than 4,000 registered delegates were still in the room.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (Wagle, social democracy), myRepublica (Lamichhane), Ratopati (oath ceremony)

Airbell's Bill Comes Due

The Department of Money Laundering Investigation has suspended Ajeya Raj Sumargi's passport and reopened a probe into $118.4 million that flowed into Nepal by 2017 through Airbell Services, a Cyprus-registered company, and Zhodar Investments out of the British Virgin Islands. DoMLI opened its detailed investigation in 2018, Nepal Rastra Bank flagged Rs 3.5 billion ($23 million) as suspicious and froze deposits at several commercial banks, and Sumargi withdrew the funds anyway after 2018. Investigators also said that he had pulled out another Rs 8.5 billion ($56 million) that came into Nepal before 2017. The 2019 "Nepal Leaks" investigation by CIJ Nepal and the ICIJ had already named him as an Airbell investor, tracing the company to Magnum House in Cyprus.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Editor Gets Four Months for Crossing the Colonels

Kathmandu District Court sentenced Saroj Mishra, then-editor of Rajdhani Daily, to four months in prison because of a 2023 article headlined "High handedness of three Colonels of Nepali Army." Judge Atmadev Joshi also told Mishra and the paper to pay Rs 250,000 ($1,645) in compensation to complainant Shova Karki, in addition to a Rs 1,000 ($7) fine.

Nepal Weekly - 2026-06-24

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 05:31:12 GMT

Nepal business, finance and trade news, every Wednesday.

Photo by Avel Chuklanov on Unsplash

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Opposition Figures Get Graft Heat Beat

Bishnu Paudel, CPN-UML vice-chair and former finance minister, was arrested Monday and flown to Kathmandu for questioning. Authorities are about to question another former finance minister, Janardan Sharma, who responded on social media by saying he has "always been in favor" of investigating his assets while objecting to what he called a media trial. Both cases are running alongside the Rs 1 billion passport printing probe, which has already put senior passport department officials, the Nepali representative of German contractor Muehlbauer, and a former accounts officer in custody. Former Foreign Minister Arzu Rana Deuba has also been called to “chat” about passport contracts worth Rs 7.5 billion awarded last year to Muehlbauer and Veridos. KP Sharma Oli said Paudel's arrest is a political stunt.

Read more: Newagebd (protest backstory), myRepublica (passport contract), Spotlight Nepal (arrest location)

Nobody Agrees on the Lines

Nepal spent the week arguing about both of its major borders. Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal told parliament on Thursday that the northern frontier with China is not entirely dispute-free, contradicting years of official assurances and acknowledging unresolved questions in Dolakha, Humla, Gorkha, and Kimathanka. The admission was made shortly after his return from Beijing and nearly two decades after the last joint boundary inspection, despite a protocol that demands one every 10 years. In the south, PM Balendra Shah was busy ~~backpedalling~~ clarifying remarks of his own, insisting he had not asked Britain to mediate Nepal's dispute with India, only that Kathmandu would produce British-era evidence if necessary. New Delhi had already rejected any third-party role. Shah says Nepal has proof that Kalapani and Lipulekh belong to Nepal and invited India to produce its own evidence.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (China pillar disputes), Indiatoday IN (Britain mediation denial)

Rulebook Catch-up

RSP closed up its first general convention in Chitwan this week with little suspense about the outcome. Delegates approved a 158-member central committee, a new office-bearer structure, and new gender inclusion rules. The interesting vote was one that wasn't really a vote. The new rule reserves 51 of the 158 central committee seats for direct appointment by party chair Rabi Lamichhane, while also formally creating a "senior leader" position for Balendra Shah, a title he had already been using for months. New candidacy rules add another twist: delegates who propose or endorse a candidate are barred from running themselves, making it harder for challengers to come from the floor.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (office-bearer structure), myRepublica (convention attendance), The Himalayan Times (NHRC indictment)

Bird Flu Books a Cage at the Zoo

Bird flu has made its way from Nepal's poultry farms to Kathmandu's Central Zoo. The zoo shut indefinitely on Friday after the virus was found in more than a dozen animals, mostly birds but also leopard cats, jungle cats, and civets. The outbreak began in Morang on March 18 and has since gone on to plague 55 poultry farms in 10 districts, forcing the destruction of 479,156 birds, 694,193 eggs, and 182,775 kilograms of feed.

Read more: NDTV (zoo operator), Az (biosecurity response)

Harvest Won’t Wait

India tightened export procedures on Nepali tea on June 15, and brought about expanded quality checks that made factory operations financially unviable almost overnight. More than 50 estates in Ilam and another 30 in Jhapa have shut during the peak first-flush harvest, leaving an estimated 60,000 workers and staff without income as unpicked leaves start to dry out on the bushes. Workers at Giribandhu, Tokla, and Kalika estates said they needed to borrow for food and essentials on credit; younger colleagues are making their way to India or the cities to find new work. This is the harvest that helps determine the year's earnings, so this is likely to be a tough year.

Central Bank Wants to See Your Receipts

Nepal Rastra Bank spent three days this month reminding commercial banks who writes the rulebook. One order capped CEO pay at whichever is lower between 0.015 percent of total assets and two percent of average employee expenses over three years, while also limiting performance bonuses to 20 percent of that amount. Another required directors and CEOs to disclose overseas assets, unpaid government dues, beneficial ownership interests, and any criminal or civil cases. A third set overtime at 1.5 times normal pay, rising to double on public holidays and limited to a total of 24 hours a week. The level of detail was notable, extending even to limits on basic perks such as phones, laptops, vehicles, fuel, and drivers (chauffeurs). Bankers have spent years complaining about regulatory overreach, and these new rules are not likely to dim that view.

Read more: Ratopati (dissent), myRepublica (tiered caps)

Trade Gap Growing

Nepal's trade deficit was Rs 1.616 trillion ($10.6 billion) in the first 11 months of FY2025/26, up 15.67 percent from last year. Imports were up 15.16 percent to Rs 1.894 trillion ($12.5 billion); India supplied 58 percent of the figure. Exporters had some bright spots. Cardamom shipments (next story) nearly doubled to Rs 12 billion ($79 million). the country's biggest export is still soybean oil refined from imported raw beans, which made Rs 122.87 billion ($808 million) in export earnings. The exports are growing, which is good news, but the problem is that the import bill is growing faster.

Read more: Spotlight Nepal

Cardamom Carries the Export Ledger

One of Nepal's oldest exports is struggling, while one of its oldest spices is picking up the slack. Carpet exports to China dropped 75.63 percent to Rs 214 million ($1.4 million) in the first ten months of FY2024-25 as VAT on raw materials, labour shortages, and cheaper machine-made competition squeezed the sector. Cardamom is on a different track, however, where exports were a record 6,034 tonnes in the first eleven months, earning Rs 12.01 billion ($79 million) as prices held close to Rs 2,500 ($16) per kilogram and demand remained strong from Pakistan and the Middle East (via India). India takes up about 99 percent of Nepal's cardamom exports and then ships much of it elsewhere.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (carpet collapse), The Kathmandu Post (cardamom productivity gap)

Commerce Plans Get Tax Tweaks

The Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies published its Commercial Policy Implementation Action Plan 2081 this week, promising warehouse and cold-storage upgrades at the main border crossings, internationally certified quality laboratories, and enforcement of rules requiring public institutions to buy at least 20 percent Nepali goods. Former Finance Secretary Vidyadhar Mallik also brought an old complaint back to life. Mallik, who led a high-level tax reform committee whose recommendations have spent more than two years gathering dust, criticized what he called "midnight changes" to tax rates and ad-hoc exemptions inserted into the Financial Act without full parliamentary scrutiny. One ministry is trying to make the country easier to invest in, but (he says), another keeps fiddling with the fine print.

Read more: myRepublica (action plan), The Kathmandu Post (Mallik)

Rangers Above the Death Zone

For the first time, the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee placed rangers at Camp II for the entirety of a climbing season, closing a loophole that let climbers meet their waste quotas with rubbish collected lower down the mountain. The change appears to have worked. A record 90,329 kg of waste was taken out during a spring season that saw 701 climbers on Everest, Lhotse, and Nuptse, including 1,226 kg of non-recyclable rubbish recovered from Camp III and the South Col, as well as 210 gas canisters. Climbers were required to bring back 2 kg of waste from above Camp II in addition to the existing 8 kg Base Camp quota. The mountain still has dirtier corners. Next season, the rangers move up to Camp IV.

Read more: The Himalayan Times

The Bulldozers Finally Arrived

Pokhara's long-delayed bus park project took a step forward on Thursday when three excavators began clearing structures from land the city first acquired in the mind 1970’s. About 140 buildings are slated for demolition, including 40 to 45 houses and sheds along the northern side of the Prithvi Highway and nearly 100 more in the southern section. The Bastola Complex was given until Friday before facing the same fate. Informal settlers have been granted the most time. The municipality says no one will be moved until alternative housing is arranged.

Read more: myRepublica

The App That Couldn't

Nepal's National ID download portal went offline less than 24 hours after investigative outlet Khoj Samachar published a report showing security flaws in the verification system. Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle's budget for the upcoming fiscal year promises a national AI platform, homegrown social networks, and Nepali alternatives to WhatsApp. The government is still taking applications for some of the country's most senior public positions, including university vice-chancellors, through free Google Forms. The digital future is “on the way,” but it seems that much of the infrastructure didn’t get the memo.

Read more: Eurasia Review (404 aftermath), Nepal News (Google Forms irony)

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

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Nepal Weekly - 2026-06-17

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 06:56:22 GMT

Nepal business, finance and trade news, every Wednesday.

Photo by Meera Pankhania on Unsplash

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Three Courts Chase Billions

Prosecutors have filed cases at the Kathmandu District Court, Patan High Court, and the Special Court against executives of the Shanker Group, Infinity Holdings, and Himalayan Reinsurance, in what legal officials say is the first coordinated multi-court financial enforcement action of its kind in Nepal. The defendants include Shanker Group chair Shankerlal Agrawal and his sons Sulav and Sahil, who serve as vice-chairs, Infinity Holdings chair Deepak Bhatta, and Shekhar Golchha, former FNCCI president and former Himalayan Reinsurance chairman. The combined claims total Rs27.80 billion (roughly $183 million), with the majority of that sitting in the money laundering case at the Special Court. Investigators say the group used political influence and manipulated regulations to dominate insurance, securities, and banking before laundering the proceeds.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Record Budget Finds an Empty Bench

Nepal's federal budget for FY 2026/27 clocked in at Rs 212 billion ($1.4 billion), the largest in the country's history, with more than a third of that set aside for energy and a plan to reduce 22 ministries down to 18. On Monday and Tuesday, MPs wandered the House of Representatives hunting for ministers who were supposed to defend their own budgets, and Speaker DP Aryal twice delayed proceedings by 15 minutes waiting for ministers who didn’t bother to show up. Rule 6, Sub-rule 5 of the House Regulations makes ministerial presence mandatory during budget discussions. PM Balendra Shah, who was known for being different from the old political class, was among the absentees, including when the budget for his own office came up. Lawmakers responded by threatening to cut ministry budgets to a single rupee, taking aims at Home affairs, Infrastructure, Law, and Energy.

Read more: myRepublica (ministry consolidation), Spotlight Nepal (energy targets), Ratopati (minister quotes), The Rising Nepal (one-rupee proposals)

Wang Yi Has Notes on Nepal's American Friends

Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal arrived in Beijing on June 14, a week after his New Delhi trip. Wang Yi told Khanal that "distant relatives are not as good as close neighbours," a line for Washington's Millennium Challenge Corporation and State Partnership Programme, which Chinese officials reportedly described as initiatives that "only create trouble for China." Khanal's team reaffirmed the One China Principle and proposed four corridors connecting the northern border to mid-Nepal, including a trans-Himalayan railway, in addition to air routes for Hilsa.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (Pokhara corruption), Nepali Times (trade imbalance), Internazionale (RSP parliamentary seats), The Kathmandu Post (Wang Yi)

Missing Millions Land Ex-CAAN Chief in Jail

The Special Court sent former CAAN Director General Sanjiv Gautam to prison on June 16, pending trial on charges that he and Pokhara Regional International Airport project director Pradeep Adhikari embezzled Rs 503.44 million ($3.3 million) by inflating costs. Prosecutors say the pair approved a Rs 428.9 million ($2.8 million) contract while leaving a separate $2.8 million in agreed engineering, procurement and construction funds unspent. CAAN has also filed a separate claim that references Rs 89.5 million ($589,000) in losses from Gautam under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 2002.

Read more: myRepublica

India's Quality Test Strands Nepal's Harvest

Fifty-three orthodox tea factories in Ilam shut down on June 15, and 30 CTC factories in the Tarai are expected to follow on June 18, after India started to enforce border testing for tea exports on May 1. Lab reports take 15 to 20 days, and any shipment that fails can be destroyed or sent back. Indian importers have largely stopped buying as they wait for more clarity. Ilam produces 6.5 million kg of tea every, India takes 90 percent of the orthodox crop.

Read more: myRepublica (farmer), Online Khabar (association VP), myRepublica (diplomatic remedy)

Vaccine Budget Without Vaccines

Sukraraj Tropical and Infectious Hospital, Nepal's primary centre for rabies treatment, is seeing more than 500 people a day wanting jabs and expects what's left of its stock to run out within days. The Epidemiology and Disease Control Division has given up trying to buy vaccines after failed procurement attempts and told provincial and local governments to source their own. The government set aside Rs 130 million ($855,000) for anti-rabies vaccines in fiscal 2024-25 and doubled it in 2025-26 because of rising demand, but still missed the procurement window. More than 60,000 Nepalis get anti-rabies shots at government facilities every year, and more than 100 still die of the disease.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (editorial)

ITBP Chief Drops In Without Knocking

An Indian military helicopter carrying ITBP director-general Shatrujeet Singh Kapoor flew deep into Nepali airspace on June 10, passing directly over homes in the village of Chhangru in ward 1 of Byas Rural Municipality, Darchula. The skies were clear that morning, so any “weather-realted” excuse for skipping the usual route along the Mahakali river doesn’t make sense. Residents poured into the street shouting as the chopper continued toward the Indian military barracks at Gunji in the Kalapani area, where Kapoor was reportedly headed for an inspection.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

The Mattress Is Getting Heavy

Nepal's foreign reserves are now $24.19 billion, enough to cover more than 19 months of imports and about three times what's generally considered to be “enough” for an economy of Nepal’s size. The pile isn't government savings, its accumulated remittances in addition to the residue of tight monetary policy from 2022, after a post-pandemic import surge nearly drained the piggy. Banking sector deposits are Rs 7.949 trillion ($52.3 billion), and the current credit-to-deposit ratio is still below 80 percent, so lenders are sitting on loanable funds they can't place.

Read more: Spotlight Nepal

3,000 Strangers Want an Embassy Job

Nepal's Foreign Ministry threw open 16 ambassadorial posts to public application for the first time ever, and more than 3,000 people raised their hands, dwarfing the response to any normal government vacancy. Foreign Minister Arzu Rana Deuba's ministry is promising a shortlist based on qualifications and experience instead of exam scores. By law, half the slots still must go to serving special-class or first-class Foreign Service officers, leaving the other half for outside experts angling for postings in Delhi, Beijing, Washington, Riyadh, Tokyo, and a dozen other capitals.

Read more: Spotlight Nepal

BYDs Roll South After Probe Clears Importer

A Finance Ministry probe found no irregularities in the import of 775 BYD electric vehicles seized by the Armed Police Force two weeks ago at the Korala border point, and by Monday most were already rolling toward their destinations. The three-member committee led by Customs Valuation Division Director Bhupal Raj Shakya ran a field inspection in Mustang, Kaski, and Parbat before clearing importer Simon Inc. The APF had earlier taken hold of 649 vehicles that had cleared customs at Nechung.

Read more: The Himalayan Times (seizure breakdown), myRepublica (Leapmotor B10 specs)

Mango Non Grata

India's mango exporters are having a rough season. Nepal now demands that Indian mangoes to be hot-water treated at 48°C for an hour and certified free of high-risk pests before they can come across the border, and Japan has indefinitely suspended fresh Indian mango imports over fumigation lapses at Vapour Heat Treatment facilities. Japan's previous ban on Indian mangoes ran from 1986 to 2006. Delhi says it wasn't consulted on Nepal's new phytosanitary rules and says it will raise the matter through the WTO.

Nepal Weekly - 2026-06-10

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 15:26:48 GMT

Nepal business, finance and trade news, every Wednesday.

Photo by Jonny James on Unsplash

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Delhi This Week, Beijing Next

Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal finished a three days adventure in New Delhi on Sunday with three deliverables. He was able to stitch-together a live UPI-to-Nepal cross-border payments link, the handover of 72 health facilities and 12 cultural heritage sites rebuilt after the 2015 earthquake, and an MoU between India's Digital India Bhashini and Kathmandu University to build a voice-first AI platform for Nepali. Khanal also met National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and pitched a five-part partnership in energy, connectivity, digital integration, education, and technology, including a tripartite green-energy grid with India and Bangladesh and proposed IIT or AIIMS campuses in Nepal. On the border dispute, Khanal confirmed that teams are working along the 1,800+ km boundary and said Nepal wants historical documents from British archives for reference, not mediation. The new RSP government is pitching evidence-based, non-ideological diplomacy loudly enough that New Delhi is listening, and Jaishankar says it’s a chance to "shift the trajectory" of ties. Khanal leaves for Beijing on June 14, and has meetings scheduled with Wang Yi and CCP International Department head Liu Haixing on June 15 and 16.

Read more: Times of India (Jaishankar), The Kathmandu Post (five-pillar proposals), Stratnewsglobal (Kalapani reaffirmed), The Kathmandu Post (NCHL-NPCI mechanism), Opengovasia (Bhashini MoU signatories)

Hundi's Days Are Numbered

Nepal Clearing House and India's NPCI went live with a real-time, fully digital cross-border transfer link on June 9, connecting Nepal's NPI directly to India's UPI. Migrant workers on both sides of the border will now be able to move money through mobile banking without ever having to see a remittance agent. The limits are (hilariously?) lopsided, though - transfers from India into Nepal can be up to INR 200,000 (about $2,400) with no monthly cap, but the Nepal-to-India direction is limited to INR 15,000 (about $180) per transaction and INR 100,000 (about $1,200) monthly. At INR 150 per transfer, the fee is modest when compared to the $1.5 to $2 billion in annual cross-border flows that still move through a mix of formal channels and cash hand-carried over the border.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Reopening the Palace Massacre File

Sudhan Gurung's first act back at the Home Ministry was to reopen the Narayanhiti royal massacre file, the 2001 palace killing of King Birendra and members of the royal family that’s never really resulted in a convincing official account. Gurung, an RSP MP from Gorkha-1 who resigned the same post earlier, was sworn in Tuesday by President Paudel alongside Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Mahabir Pun. Beyond the palace case, Gurung announced a task force to review whether criminal charges against Gen-Z protest participants from last Bhadra should be dropped, and a special unit to stop “sensitive” information leaking out of the ministry. Pun, an independent MP from Myagdi and a longtime advocate for a standalone science ministry, arrived at his new post promising to wrap up his agenda within three years.

Read more: Himalaya Times (ceremony attendees), Khabarhub (four decisions), Khabarhub (Pun)

EC Wants a Smaller Parliament

The Election Commission has proposed cutting the House of Representatives from 275 to 105 seats, and shrinking the National Assembly from 59 to 30 members, in addition to (perhaps most surprisingly) trimming its own ranks from five commissioners to three. On the other hand, however, it also wants the constitution to give it sole authority over setting election dates, a power it now shares with the government. The slimmed-down lower house would seat 77 first-past-the-post members and 28 by way of proportional representation (one constituency per district), while proportional representation in provincial assemblies would be done away with altogether. Officiating Chief Election Commissioner Ram Prasad Bhandari says the goal is a "lean and agile" institution.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Take the Money and Run

Of Rs 770 million ($5.1 million) in subsidised loans given to 765 startups over the past two fiscal years, only Rs 28.2 million ($186,000) has been returned, for a repayment rate under 4 percent. The scheme, introduced by the Oli government in 2018 in support of more self-employment, was dormant for five years because of “procedural delays.” This year's disbursement is running late after political reshuffling and a vacancy at the top of the Industrial Enterprise Development Institute, which is still trying to work through a list of about 750 final recipients from 1,301 shortlisted applicants out of 10,244 who applied. Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle has an idea for a new support vehicle, the Nepal Enterprise Facility, which would bring startup and SME businesses onto a single platform. Loans go through Rastriya Banijya Bank at 3 percent apr, up to Rs 2 million ($13,200) apiece.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Reasons to Leak a Budget

Armed Police intercepted 775 unregistered Chinese EVs on the Mustang-Kaski corridor in raids Wednesday and into Thursday, after a tip that customs officials, clearing agents, and traders had been working together to rush vehicles through the Korala border crossing before the 2026-27 budget's higher EV tariffs came into force. Not one of the seized vehicles had a license plate. The government has been pushing EV adoption, though, and a Ministry of Infrastructure Development report this week found Nepal needs 10,000 charging stations by 2030 to reach its 90 percent private EV target. That compares to the about 1,000 stations that can be found today, most of them clustered in Kathmandu, Pokhara, and Bharatpur.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (seizure operation), myRepublica (charging infrastructure)

Fifteen Days Was Always a Lie

1,488 (Ed: that’s an oddly specific number) people from 388 households are still parked in seven government holding centres across Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Kavrepalanchok, 39 days after evictions that came with a (written!) promise of permanent housing within 10 to 15 days. The six-point notice issued April 24 has become “inoperative.” Chief District Officer Eshwor Raj Poudel declined to comment, saying the process is under review. In Parliament on May 31, the PM gave a different perspective when he said "It will take as long as it takes. We cannot rush it."

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Congress Can't Find Its Members

Nepali Congress launched a digital membership renewal drive on April 14 to clean up its records ahead of the 15th General Convention. It cleaned up more than expected. The party had roughly 850,000 active members as it went into its 14th convention; officials now admit the updated database will end up having about half that number. Some of the gap is ordinary attrition (like members who emigrated, or went to the Rastriya Swatantra Party), but some of the change is more… political. Cadres aligned with Shekhar Koirala and Purna Bahadur Khadka are refusing to renew until Gagan Thapa, who ruan a special convention at the end of 2025, wins back their confidence. "I have not updated my membership because I want the leadership to feel pressure," for example, said one Jhapa leader.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (vote-member gap), The Kathmandu Post (decade-long morale)

Uber Rolls In

Uber arrived on Friday as the fourth international ride-hailing platform in Nepal, drawing about 2,500 driver registrations within a week and getting more than 20,000 app installs. Regional VP Dominic Taylor mentioned the company had been looking at Nepal a decade ago before putting the idea on ice, but apparently the youth-led government and pending ride-sharing legislation has changed the math. The Uber success story in Nepal will lean heavily on tourist traffic from markets where Uber is already operating.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (Uber partnership model)

Two Flags Battle for a Single Generation

The US and Chinese embassies opened applications for rival youth leadership programmes within weeks of each other, each trying to draw members from the generation that toppled the Oli government last September at a cost of 76 lives. The American version has been running since 2014 and claims 700 alumni across Nepal; China's brand-new "Youth Pioneer Program" is dangling an all-expense-paid trip to Beijing for top performers. Oh la la.

Nepal Weekly - 2026-06-03

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 05:48:15 GMT

Nepal business, finance and trade news, every Wednesday.

Photo by UC Berkeley, Department of Geography on Unsplash

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Big Numbers and Small Print

Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle put forward a budget of almost $14 billion on May 29. That’s the biggest ever in Nepal's history and about a quarter fatter than this year's revised spending. The $4.3 billion deficit will be covered with foreign loans and domestic borrowing. Some of the headline relief is real. The income tax exemption threshold doubles to Rs 1 million ($6,600) a year, and the top marginal rate is going down 10 percentage points. The catch is in the EV section, where Wagle scrapped the old motor peak-power tax and replaced it with a Clean Infrastructure Investment Fee based on customs value - 2.5 percent on cheaper models, 130 percent on anything above Rs 5 million ($33,000). Dealers say entry-level electric cars are going to cost about Rs 100,000 ($660) more as a result. High-end models could go up by more than Rs 10 million ($66,000). NEPSE greeted the package with a 26-point drop on June 1, as 233 companies fell against 35 gainers. Civil servants did well. Their pay will rise by Rs 75 billion ($493 million) to Rs 242 billion ($1.6 billion) - a 21 percent increase that will eat a larger share of a recurrent spending bill that’s already taking up 60 percent of total outlays.

Read more: Nepal News (budget allocation breakdown), myRepublica (EV tax rates), The Kathmandu Post (industry dissent), myRepublica (income tax slabs), myRepublica (NEPSE trading)

Balen Drags Britain Into Border Row

Speaking off the cuff in his first parliamentary Q&A on May 31, PM Balendra Shah said something no Nepali head of government had said before - that Nepal has also encroached on Indian territory in several places. The encroachment line lit the fuse, but Shah had already pulled a second pin by saying that Kathmandu had raised the Kalapani-Lipulekh-Limpiyadhura dispute not only with India and China, but also with London, on the logic that Britain drew the lines when it left in 1816 and should help fix them. India's MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal shut that door quickly, saying there was "no role for any third party." British Ambassador Rob Fenn had told Shah's chief adviser, Kumar Byanjankar, much the same thing, though we presume in a more diplomatic fashion. The Foreign Ministry spent the rest of the week saying Shah had only meant cross-border cultivation in the Dasgaja no-man's-land - a clarification the opposition said is a cover-up.

Read more: Ratopati (India's bilateral stance), The Hindu (parliament uproar), Thewire IN (UK mediation request), Theprint IN (China involvement call), Desh Sanchar (UML resignation demand)

Rights Body Names Oli, Fingers Lamichhane

Nepal's National Human Rights Commission has recommended criminal charges and a five-year political ban against former PM K.P. Sharma Oli, ex-Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak, and ex-Communications Minister Prithvi Subba Gurung over the September 2025 crackdown that killed at least 76 protesters. The report, given to the government Wednesday, doesn’t leave the current ruling coalition unscathed. It recommends investigating 17 RSP lawmakers, including party chair Rabi Lamichhane, who allegedly used a violent mob to pressure a jail administrator into releasing him during the chaos. The commission also gave a formal warning to the Nepali Army for failing to protect parliament and the president's residence. It also cleared current PM Balendra Shah - then Kathmandu's mayor - of complicity. The government has three months to report back on what it plans to do.

Mayor-Turned-PM Gives Himself 48 Jobs

PM Balendra Shah's cabinet restructuring collapsed 22 ministries into 18 and gave his own office 48 separate responsibilities - national security, anti-corruption coordination, and oversight of the National Investigation Department among them (the NID previously sat under Home). Cybersecurity, data governance, and AI policy are on the PMO’s docket too, along with IT functions pulled from the Communications Ministry. The power consolidation further extends into the civil service. On May 13, MoFAGA gave a directive that threatens dismissal of civil servants for party involvement, and a revised Federal Civil Service Bill now circulating would force one-time mandatory retirement for anyone who is 55 years old or who has 30 years of service under his belt when the law comes into effect.

Read more: Spotlight Nepal (ministry task counts), myRepublica (civil servant gag order), The Kathmandu Post (forced retirement)

Washington's Charm Offensive Meets Kathmandu's Local-Ownership Rule

Sarah B. Rogers, the third senior US official to visit since the Shah government took office in March, got to Kathmandu on Saturday night talking up the $550 million MCC Compact and addressing the 1,400-strong Ascent Summit on adventure tourism and tech. Assistant Secretary Paul Kapur came in April, Trump envoy Sergio Gor followed ten days later, and Deputy Secretary Allison Hooker called Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal by phone last Thursday. The PM met none of them. Starlink's director Rebecca Hunter was also in town, telling Communications Minister Bikram Timilsina that the license needed to be 100 percent Starlink-owned. The minister said she hopes to follow Nepali law.

Read more: Spotlight Nepal (Rogers MCC emphasis), Spotlight Nepal (Timilsina), The Kathmandu Post (visit timeline), The Kathmandu Post (Starlink ownership block)

Big Budgets Hampered by Empty Wallets

With 45 days left in the fiscal year, the government has spent nearly two-thirds of its Rs 1.964 trillion ($12.9 billion) budget and capital spending is where the spending really shows up. Only Rs 123 billion ($810 million) of the Rs 407 billion ($2.7 billion) development money set aside has so far gone out the door, a 30% execution rate. That is not a bad year; it is the decade. Finance Ministry figures show budgets averaged 33.7% of GDP over ten years while spending averaged only 26.8%, and growth slowed to 4.1% a year in the five years after Covid even as annual budgets grew at 12.3%. A World Bank report from last year found the government's capital stock has shrunk, meaning the productive base of the economy is getting smaller.

Read more: myRepublica (current spending breakdown), The Kathmandu Post (decade GDP gap)

Schools, Hospitals and Hot Plates Get the Bill

The Economic Bill 2083 adds a 3% "equity fee" to charges at private schools, colleges, and hospitals, with the revenue to be set aside for public education and health infrastructure. Households that are already paying out-of-pocket for both sectors are now going to pay more so the government can, in theory, improve the alternatives they opted out of. The bill also adds a 5% VAT on electricity consumption above 50 units a month - a change that former NEA chief Kulman Ghising says goes against global practice and Nepal's clean-energy goals. He says the grid now runs substations with more than 14,000 MVA of capacity and distribution transformers above 5,000 MVA, and that the VAT revenue will flow to the treasury rather than back into NEA infrastructure.

Read more: myRepublica (equity fee mechanics), myRepublica (Ghising dissent)

100% Gender-Responsive 0% Checked

For three straight fiscal years - 2022-23 through 2024-25 - Nepal's Ministry of Women classified its entire budget as "directly gender responsive." That wasn’t because anyone assessed the programs, but because an IT operator picks "direct" from a dropdown when entering budget headings (“try this one simple trick to… ”). There are apparently no indicators, no scoring, and no analysis. Between 44 and 59 percent of that perfectly-classified budget went unspent each year, heading back to the treasury.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Beijing Sets Quota While Kailash Sets Demand

China has capped Indian pilgrims to Mount Kailash by way of Nepal at 24,000 this season, a small increase over the 20,000 approved last year, but demand has already risen above 40,000 and tour operators have asked Beijing for another 15,000 slots. The Year of the Horse is to credit for the boom. Tibetan tradition holds that one circuit around Kailash in a Horse Year earns the spiritual merit of 12 or 13 in an ordinary one. Beijing sounds "positive" on expanding the quota, according to Basu Adhikari of Touch Kailash Travel. Foreign passport holders could result in another 5,000 pilgrims this season. The overflow is reshaping Humla, where the Hilsa route now supports seven hotels at the border and fifteen in Simkot, as well as a growing market for local apples, walnuts, and buckwheat.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Shenzhen Gets a Direct Line to Kathmandu

Himalaya Airlines launches a Kathmandu-Shenzhen route tomorrow, becoming the first carrier to fly direct between Tribhuvan International and the southern Chinese city that’s home to Huawei, DJI, and China's original Special Economic Zone. Twice-weekly service will run Tuesdays and Thursdays out of Kathmandu.

Read more: Spotlight Nepal (VP Shrestha), The Himalayan Times (buying channels)

Dial-Up Divestment

The FY2026-27 budget will result in a reduction of state ownership of Nepal Telecom from 91 percent to 66 percent. The freed-up shares will be offered to the public by mid-January. The proceeds are expected to be used to fund ambitions to become a "tech hub.” The proposed sale would be the largest state divestment in recent memory.

Read more: The Himalayan Times

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Nepal Weekly - 2026-05-27

Wed, 27 May 2026 03:28:06 GMT

Nepal business, finance and trade news, every Wednesday.

Photo by Sebastian Pena Lambarri on Unsplash

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One House, Two-Thirds, No Senate

The House of Representatives Rules Drafting Committee has tucked a constitutional workaround into Rule 140(11) of the proposed House regulations. The provision would allow for a constitutional amendment to pass on a combined two-thirds vote across both chambers, 223 out of 334 total seats, instead of the separate two-thirds majority each house must independently clear under the constitution as written now. The ruling Rastriya Swatantra Party holds 182 of the lower house's 275 seats on its own, a short walk to the combined threshold. A parliamentary secretariat official said the arrangement "could create controversy." Opposition members on the drafting committee say RSP applied direct pressure to get the provision on paper. Under the constitution, if the National Assembly refuses a constitutional amendment, it dies right there; Rule 140(11) would let a lower house supermajority paper over that refusal by pooling tallies.

Read more: Constitutionnet (expert opposition), myRepublica (RSP seat math)

Balen Skips Question Hour

Rule 56 of the House of Representatives Regulations isn’t complicated. The Speaker is required to set aside an hour in the first week of every month for lawmakers to grill the prime minister directly, but PM Balen Shah has yet to show up. The opposition, a rare unified front of Nepali Congress, CPN-UML, Nepali Communist Party, and Rastriya Prajatantra Party is up in arms. RSP Chief Whip Kabindra Burlakoti told the House Shah would appear "within a week," but the Prime Minister's secretariat refused to let anyone announce a specific date. Nepali Congress lawmaker Arjun Narsingh KC told Parliament his prime minister resembled "the emperor of some separate island."

Read more: Nepal News (Shah declined attendance), Khabarhub (Burlakoti commitment), The Kathmandu Post (Speaker's Singh Durbar visit), Ratopati (Rule 56 sub-rule), The Himalayan Times (bills passed anyway)

Wrong Court, Your Honour

The Supreme Court on blocked the arrest of former Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and his wife Arzu Rana Deuba on money laundering charges Monday, ruling that the Kathmandu District Court had no jurisdiction to issue the warrant. A May 1 ordinance had assigned all cases investigated by the Department of Money Laundering Investigation exclusively to the Special Court, leaving the district court's April 6 warrant legally dead on arrival. The bench found that both the state and the lower court had skipped proper procedure at every step. The Deubas, in Hong Kong since February, had already watched Interpol turn down Nepal Police's red notice request because of insufficient documentation.

Read more: The Hindu (medical travel claim), Spotlight Nepal (Deuba cooperation stance), Online Khabar (Special Court jurisdiction), The Kathmandu Post (warrant nullification), myRepublica (arrest unnecessary claim)

Lamichhane's Charge Sheet Goes on a Diet

Kaski District Court on Friday stripped the two most serious charges from the Suryadarshan Cooperative fraud case, removing organized crime and money laundering counts against RSP chair Rabi Lamichhane and nearly 50 co-defendants, leaving only the cooperative fraud charge standing. Judge Himlal Belbase approved the amendment at the request of the Kaski district government attorney's office, which was acting on instructions from the Office of the Attorney General. The court offered three reasons. The victims' original complaint never included those charges, the government didn't pursue them in its first charge-sheet, and keeping them on the books would get in the way of settlement talks and complicate any recovery of depositors' savings.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (co-defendants), The Himalayan Times (bail amounts)

Delhi Skips PM, Rings the Chairman

Rabi Lamichhane, whose RSP won close to a two-thirds majority in the last elections, will be in New Delhi starting June 1 for a three-day visit. He is scheduled to meet Narendra Modi, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, and Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, among others. The invitation came from India's Ministry of External Affairs, with no official communication from the RSP to Kathmandu's Foreign Ministry about the trip. Modi had already called PM Balen Shah after the elections to congratulate him and extend an invitation, but that visit remains unscheduled.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (Lipulekh dispute), Online Khabar (RSP election majority)

Oli's Deputies Show Him the Door

At Saturday's UML Secretariat meeting, Deputy General Secretary Yogesh Bhattarai reportedly told KP Sharma Oli that the party couldn’t move forward under him and he should step aside. The day before, on Friday, vice chairpersons Bishnu Paudel, Gokarna Bista, Prithvi Subba Gurung, and Raghu Pant made the same demand. General Secretary Shankar Pokharel told Saturday's session the party couldn’t continue in its current condition, but it isn’t clear if the demands have any chance of being met in the near term.

Read more: Spotlight Nepal

Three More Years in the Poor Kids' Club

Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal wrote to the UN Committee for Development Policy on May 13 asking to push Nepal's graduation from Least Developed Country status back to November 2029, three years beyond the original November 2026 date. The official reasoning cites five issues, including geopolitical tensions, supply chain disruptions, slow implementation of the Smooth Transition Strategy, lingering pandemic damage, and Middle East conflict squeezing remittance flows. The ILO previously warned that graduating on schedule could cost roughly 132,000 jobs and nearly a billion USD in economic losses within five years, as garments, carpets, and pashmina would get hit with higher tariffs and stricter rules of origin. The Smooth Transition Strategy that was supposed to use the intervening years to build export competitiveness has, by the government's admission, moved more slowly than was expected.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (35% employment drop), The Kathmandu Post (minister quotes), Nepali Times (budget growth targets)

Desert Mirage Sends 80,000 Nepalis Home

About 80,000 Nepali workers are losing their jobs as Saudi Arabia scales back NEOM, the wild mega-project whose initial $500 billion price tag has grown to a jaw-dropping $8.8 trillion, and at least one internal audit suggesting full completion could take another half century plus. The 80k is a meaningful slice of the ~400,000 Nepalis who work in Saudi Arabia. Falling oil prices and the runaway cost overruns have pushed the Saudi government to redirect money toward the 2030 Riyadh World Expo and the 2034 FIFA World Cup, fixtures that will be considerably cheaper than building a 170-kilometer twin-skyscraper city in the desert. To put the numbers in to context, the $8.8 trillion figure is roughly 25 times Saudi Arabia's yearly national budget and nearly ten times the value of the $925 billion Public Investment Fund.

Read more: Ratopati

Monsoon Bill Comes Due Early

Humla's Danfe Basic School is gone, swept away by a pre-monsoon rainstorm on Tuesday night that also buried homes and destroyed crop fields belonging to 67 households. Two glacial lakes above Tilgaun in the same district burst last May and are leaking again. The municipality says they have no budget to deal with them and so far there’s been no federal response. Farther east, Friday night's flooding knocked out four hydropower projects along the Taplejung-Panchthar border, taking 55 MW offline. The 25 MW Kabeli B-1 may need two weeks to clear debris from its intake, and the 9.9 MW Iwa Khola project could be out for several months after damage to its dam site and pipeline. So, not pretty by any measure. While all of this is brewing, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority has approved this year’s monsoon response plan, and has set aside Rs 7.56 billion ($49.7 million) to support an estimate that 51,868 households (about a quarter million people) will be affected. The monsoon hasn't officially arrived yet.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (Karnali loss history), Spotlight Nepal (Iwa Khola timeline), Ratopati (volunteer mobilization), The Rising Nepal (force breakdown), The Kathmandu Post (substation damage)

Measles Spreads as Vaccine Stocks Run Dry

Measles has infected more than 300 children in seven districts so far this year. Ring vaccinations went ahead in only one district and one municipality, because Nepal has no buffer vaccine stocks and no emergency budget to speak of. A 200,000-dose shipment from an aid agency arrived months after an emergency request, but the chief of the Immunisation Section says it won't cover all the affected areas. A Health Ministry official, speaking anonymously, pointed the finger at the RSP government's decision to cut contract health workers and vaccinators.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Rush Hour at 8,848 Metres

A week ago today, 274 climbers reached the Everest summit from the Nepali side in a single day, a feat that improves (?) upon the previous record of 223 set in 2019. The lineup ran from the Balcony right to the top and some climbers were stuck in the death zone for up to five hours. The season's numbers are aggressive. This year Nepal issued 494 Everest permits, the most since Hillary and Tenzing first scaled the peak in 1953, and took in about $7 million in royalties for their effors. China has issued no permits from the Tibetan side this year, so every climber is moving through Nepal, which helps explain the pressure on the ropes. A growing chorus in the industry wants the government to scrap the May 31 season cutoff, arguing the original rationale, long monsoon marches from the foothills, no longer applies, and that year-round access would spread the load and the revenue. Three deaths have been reported so far this season.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (nationality breakdown), Nepali Times (season cutoff debate), DW (gender split)

Seized Collateral, Squeezed Cash

Non-banking assets at BFIs reached Rs 46.10 billion ($303 million) as of mid-April, up 20 percent from a year earlier, as banks are forced to sit on foreclosed properties they can't auction fast enough to make any difference. Himalayan Bank topped the table at Rs 6.08 billion ($40 million) and Prime Bank's pile more than doubled to Rs 4.99 billion ($33 million). The Supreme Court only recently ruled that BFIs are able to auction seized assets beyond the previous three-year limit.

Read more: myRepublica (bank-level breakdown), myRepublica (auction mechanics)

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Nepal Weekly - 2026-05-20

Wed, 20 May 2026 03:15:10 GMT

Nepal business, finance and trade news, every Wednesday.

Photo by Kaushal Subedi on Unsplash

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Fourth in Seniority, First in the Robes

Dr. Manoj Kumar Sharma was sworn in as Nepal's 33rd Chief Justice on Tuesday, the completion of an arc from parliamentary hearing to an oath in front of President Paudel to assumption of office in a single day. The Constitutional Council had recommended Sharma on May 7, passing over Acting Chief Justice Sapana Pradhan Malla and two other, more senior, judges, to reach the fourth name on the seniority list, the first time in Nepali judicial history that the order has been skipped so far down. The mechanism that made it possible was PM Balendra Shah's Constitutional Council ordinance, which handed the chairman a tiebreaker veto, and which the President tried and failed to send back. Before Sharma arrived at Ram Shah Path, the court's administration had been refusing to register writ petitions challenging his appointment; Acting Chief Justice Malla put out an order saying that filings needed to be accepted by 1 p.m. that day, and said the refusal was an obstruction “to the path of justice.” The Nepal Bar Association staged a protest while the hearing was running. Sixteen complaints were filed against Sharma before the parliamentary committee unanimously endorsed him anyway.

Read more: The Annapurna Express (oath ceremony), Ratopati (term length, pending caseload), Online Khabar (Malla's writ order), Indianexpress (ordinance mechanism), Khabarhub (timeline)

Four Months to Dodge the Black List

David Shannon has been running mutual evaluations since 2002, is on his 24th, and isn't the kind of assessor who flies in when things are going well. The APG's Deputy Executive Secretary arrived in Kathmandu on Sunday, led Monday meetings at the PM's office with finance, home, law, the attorney general, the central bank, and the security agencies, and then made his dissatisfaction with Nepal's pace of reform unmistakably clear to those present. A confidential APG Secretariat briefing note indicates that this as the final high-level intervention before the September 2026 review that’s going to decide whether Nepal exits the grey list or drops onto the black one. The 15-point action plan that was supposed to demonstrate progress is, per the same note, “not adequately prepared.”

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Billions Parked but Records Conveniently Missing

Nepal's cumulative public sector financial irregularities reached Rs755.17 billion ($4.97 billion) by the end of fiscal year 2024-25. The Auditor General's 63rd annual report, sent to President Ramchandra Paudel on Friday, audited Rs9.48 trillion of spending by 5,526 public offices and found the government settled Rs63.12 billion in arrears over the year, only to immediately outpace that with new expenses. Auditor General Toyam Raya said that 179 offices worth Rs147.9 billion in expenditure couldn't be audited at all, because records went missing during last September's protests.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (digital payment reforms), Ratopati (unnecessary ballast spend), myRepublica (179 offices breakdown)

Auditors Found What Auditors Find

An independent review of 10 commercial banks, commissioned by Nepal Rastra Bank at the IMF's insistence as a condition for the fourth tranche of Extended Credit Facility funding, turned up the usual problems. Evergreened loans, inflated collateral, and provisioning dressed up to keep capital adequacy ratios above the regulatory floor. Average NPLs in the 10 banks was 7.6 percent, and capital adequacy reported to be 11.30 percent. Himalayan Bank, NIC Asia, Prabhu Bank, Kumari Bank, and Rastriya Banijya Bank are looking at capital top-ups to stay compliant. The NRB is asking for clarifications from the banks before telling them how to get their houses in order.

Read more: myRepublica (NPL audit), myRepublica (asset declaration), myRepublica (Rs 4.6B sale), The Kathmandu Post (banker condemnation)

Win an Election Then We'll Talk

Seven weeks into his premiership, Balendra Shah has yet to address the House of Representatives on his government's policy agenda, and the finance minister's response to critics made clear the administration isn't losing sleep over it. Swarnim Wagle told opposition lawmakers this week that if they want their "language, style, and documents" reflected in government policy, they should win the next election. Surya Kiran Gurung, former secretary-general of the parliamentary secretariat, said no prime minister since the 1990 restoration of democracy had remained absent throughout deliberations on the government's own policy document. RSP MP Amaresh Kumar Singh, a six-time parliamentarian, was more direct as he told the House this was the first budget discussion in his twenty-year career held without the finance minister bothering to show up.

Read more: myRepublica (NC protest threat), Ratopati (Wagle election retort), Desh Sanchar (Singh's unprecedented claim), The Kathmandu Post (Speaker's Rule 38), myRepublica (PM's repeated absences)

Chinese Drones Fly While American Drones Wait

Nepal's Home Ministry sent Trump's South Asia envoy Sergio Gor home empty-handed on May 1, refusing a flight permit for the Alta X Gen 2 drone as Gor's team helicoptered into Everest base camp to test it. The ministry's internal memo cited "drone flying procedures" and "security sensitivity." The Americans had hired Seven Summit Treks and arranged local pilots, but the drone never left the ground. DJI's FlyCart 100, an unreleased model given to Nepali operator AirLift Technology before its commercial launch, has been hauling up to 45kg to Camp I in under three minutes this season. China set up that foothold in 2024 with the FlyCart 30; Washington is still waiting on paperwork. While the US team was packing up, the Department of Tourism published a record 492 Everest permits for 2026 on May 8, beating the 2023 record of 479 despite repeated government promises to thin the herd. Chinese climbers topped the list at 109, ahead of 76 Americans and 61 Indians, generating roughly $7.19 million (just over a billion rupees) in permit fees.

Read more: Al Jazeera (geopolitical framing), Snowbrains (waste fee, fatalities)

Congress Plans Its Own Republic Day

The Deuba-Khadka faction is expected to register a new party on May 29, Republic Day, after the Supreme Court's April 17 ruling confirmed Gagan Thapa's group as the official Nepali Congress. Former acting party president Purna Bahadur Khadka, who has been running parallel activities since the ruling, says the party is already "in a fragmented state" and has said the choice was to unite or split. Deuba broke from Congress in 2002 to form Nepali Congress (Democratic); he is now in Hong Kong as the government works on a money-laundering arrest warrant against him and his wife.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (38-seat losses), myRepublica (Khadka)

Satellite Sees Drought, Cuts Check

A $100,000 insurance payout, the first of its kind in Nepal, arrived in Bajura district after satellites found soil moisture below agreed levels and released funds automatically, with no on-the-ground damage assessment required. The parametric product was built by Global Parametrics with a catalytic grant from the Natural Disaster Fund, backed by the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and Germany's KfW. Tearfund and local partner International Nepal Fellowship used the money to feed 671 households, distribute drought-resistant seeds and tools to 405 people, and install irrigation tanks for 176 households.

Read more: Christiantoday (Tearfund response), Reinsurancene WS (Global Parametrics role)

Spilled Watts Mean a Cooked Dinner

A rural kitchen in Baglung's Badigad municipality apparently became the site of Asia's first green hydrogen cooking demonstration on May 15 (seems hard to believe, but that’s what they’re saying), with Gandaki Province's economic affairs minister on hand to light the flame. The HyHEG project, run by Nepal Energy Foundation and Kathmandu University with backing from Innovate UK and Swiss partners, runs a 5 kW electrolyzer off the GiringdiKhola micro-hydro plant to turn surplus electricity into stored hydrogen. One kilogram is enough to fuel a five-person home for a week, the result of nearly three years of testing on micro-hydro sites under 500 kW that the national grid has made mostly idle.

Read more: Spotlight Nepal

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Nepal Weekly - 2026-05-13

Wed, 13 May 2026 03:03:14 GMT

Nepal business, finance and trade news, every Wednesday.

Photo by Aaron Santelices on Unsplash

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Seven Percent Growth Plan Inspires a Walkout

President Ram Chandra Paudel delivered the government's FY 2083/84 (2026/27) policy and program to a joint parliamentary session on Monday, with targets that include 7% annual growth over the next decade, 30,000 MW of electricity in the same timeframe, and the integration of all economic transactions into digital platforms. Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle, appearing before the Finance Committee the same day, put some numbers on the ambition. Regular government obligations run about Rs 13.3 trillion ($87 billion), leaving a shortfall of roughly Rs 7 trillion ($46 billion) even before any new projects are begun. The opposition was unmoved. UML parliamentary leader Ram Bahadur Thapa said the document "entirely rejectable," the Nepali Congress dismissed it as a continuation of old policies, and the RPP accused the government of producing a "copy-paste" document that forgot Karnali and Sudurpashchim existed. The harshest critique came from inside Prime Minister Balen Shah's own base when Gen Z activist Tanuja Pandey publicly told him to stop acting "like a ruffian" after Shah walked out of parliament as the President was still reading the policy that his cabinet had written.

Read more: The Himalayan Times (policy targets), myRepublica (digital economy), Khabarhub (opposition), The Rising Nepal (Rs 7 trillion shortfall), myRepublica (Pandey's rebuke)

Balen's Blitz Meets the Bench

The Supreme Court has frozen three of Prime Minister Balendra Shah's signature moves this week. The justices issued interim orders against his push to scrap civil service trade unions, his dissolution of the Free Student Union, and his riverbank eviction drive that left more than 3,000 families needing to register for emergency shelter. The Nepal Bar Association's executive chairman says the court's intervention shows that the executive "has acted illegally.” Before that dust settled, Shah's Constitutional Council on May 8 recommended Dr. Manoj Kumar Sharma as the next chief justice, skipping over three more-senior justices, including Acting Chief Justice Sapana Pradhan Malla, who called on fellow judges not to bow to a two-thirds majority or threats of impeachment. The government rests its case on Sharma's CV, saying he has a PhD in Labour Law from Tribhuvan University, has a stronger case disposal record, better academic credentials, and a cleaner reputation than those passed over.

Read more: Ratopati, myRepublica (seniority convention breach), The Hindu (RSP election mandate)

Reserves Pile Up, Nobody's Borrowing

Gross foreign exchange reserves were Rs 3.494 trillion ($22.99 billion) by mid-April, up 30.5 percent from mid-July 2025, and enough to cover 21.8 months of imports. The balance of payments surplus doubled year-on-year to $5.10 billion, and the current account surplus tripled to $4.32 billion from $1.64 billion. Reserves held by banks outside the NRB grew fastest, up 56.8 percent to Rs 412.32 billion ($2.71 billion). Reserves are now 57.2 percent of GDP, with Indian currency making up a fifth of total holdings. Banks are sitting on Rs 79.52 trillion ($523 billion) in deposits against Rs 58.74 trillion ($386 billion) worth of lending. Interbank rates are 2.75 percent and private credit demand remains flat.

Read more: myRepublica

Meta's Billions Exist Only in the Press Release

WorldLink CEO Keshav Nepal told Kantipur this week that there is no agreement, no NDA, and no $33 million Meta investment in a local data center, despite Nepal Khabar reporting exactly that. "If a foreign investment of that size were coming in, we would have announced it through a formal event," he said. Nepal Khabar headlined a Bichuten Data Vault announcement as "Google enters Nepal as strategic partner" when, in truth, Google is only supplying technical services, not capital.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Delhi Bails Out Paddy Season

Cabinet approved an emergency buy of 80,000 tonnes of fertilizer from India under a government-to-government arrangement, with paddy transplantation season weeks away and global prices still running hot thanks to the ongoing West Asia pressures. The fertilizer haul breaks down to 60,000 tonnes of urea and 20,000 tonnes of DAP, well short of the 150,000 tonnes that was originally being looked for. Agriculture Ministry official Ram Krishna Shrestha said that full subsidization would cost roughly Rs 80 billion ($526 million), against a Rs 28.82 billion ($190 million) budget. A fresh tender would take at least 225 days, but paddy season can’t wait.

Social Media Pays

PM Balendra Shah's required asset disclosure listed Rs 14.6 million ($96,000) in cash, with Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok named as the primary sources. Nepal Rastra Bank says that's not a problem. The central bank has a category for audiovisual remittances, and 4.6 million Facebook followers plus 1.3 million YouTube subscribers apparently qualify. Nepal pulled in Rs 3.53 billion ($23.2 million) from digital platforms in FY2024-25, and the first eight months of the current fiscal year have already booked Rs 2.90 billion ($19.1 million), up from Rs 2.24 billion ($14.7 million) a year earlier. Google's platforms account for 67 percent of inflows, Meta another 12.21 percent. The Rastra Bank admits the real figure is higher, since direct brand deals between creators and companies would not fall under the tracked categories.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Export the Beans, Import the Powder

Nepal imported 979,130 kg of coffee worth Rs 1.847 billion ($12.2 million) in the first nine months of FY2025/26, even as it exported 33,772 kg for Rs 71.8 million ($472,000). Ninety-seven percent of those exports were raw, unroasted beans heading to Japan, Germany, and the US under the "Himalayan Speciality Coffee" label at premium prices. What fills Kathmandu's cafes is mostly instant coffee from Vietnam and India, with processed extracts and concentrates accounting for Rs 1.508 billion ($9.9 million) of the import bill. Domestic production is 641 tonnes against annual demand of more than 2,800 tonnes.

Read more: Online Khabar

Russia's 13-Project Offer Gathers Dust at Singha Durbar

Russia laid 13 infrastructure projects on the table in 2023, a railway line and road construction among them, following talks between then-National Assembly Chairman Ganesh Prasad Timilsina and Federation Council Chairwoman Valentina Matviyenko in Moscow. The Russian Embassy followed up with a formal letter to Timilsina on May 4 of that year. Nepal's Foreign Ministry still hasn't sent a formal reply. The files apparently never made it out of the building. By December 2025, Russia's Chargé d'Affaires Andrei Kiselenko was publicly grumbling about the "red tape" that confined the proposals to filing cabinets, saying it was "somewhat difficult to understand" the delay.

Read more: Online Khabar

A $4,000 Surcharge That Hasn’t Stung

Nepal has handed out 492 Everest climbing permits for spring 2026, a record, after raising the foreign climbing royalty from $11,000 to $15,000 to try and thin the herd. Department of Tourism spokesperson Himal Gautam trumpeted the new high-water mark by saying "Records are to be broken!" An 11-member group is still working through paperwork, so the tally still climb a bit further (no pun intended). For context, permits issued were 381 in 2019, 479 in 2023, 421 in 2024, and 456 in 2025. Rope-fixing ran two weeks behind schedule after a serac collapsed on the route to Camp I, and ropes have now reached the South Col at 7,906 meters.

Smart Cell's Carcass Draws a Crowd

Smart Cell's license was automatically cancelled in mid-April 2023 after the telecom failed to clear roughly Rs 30 billion ($197 million) in arrears, putting its towers, network, and systems under Nepal Telecommunications Authority control. Former chairman Sarvesh Joshi has since been arrested by the CIB on fraud and criminal breach of trust charges. Banks that hold the towers and equipment as loan collateral are now keen to auction them off, but nobody has settled whether government seizure or bank collateral rights come first.

Read more: Ratopati

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Nepal Weekly - 2026-05-06

Wed, 06 May 2026 02:20:23 GMT

Nepal business, finance and trade news, every Wednesday.

Photo by Stan Tuladhar on Unsplash

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Two Neighbors on One Pass

Prime Minister Balen Shah's government sent diplomatic notes to India and China last week objecting to the 2026 Kailash Mansarovar Yatra running through Lipulekh Pass, a high-altitude crossing at the Nepal-India-Tibet tri-junction that Kathmandu has claimed as its own under the 1816 Sugauli Treaty. India's response was quick: the External Affairs Ministry called the territorial claim "neither justified nor based on historical facts," and labelled it a "unilateral artificial enlargement." This is the second such protest in under a year; Kathmandu filed the first in August 2025 when India and China reopened border trade through the same pass.

Read more: Indiatoday IN (Nepal's demand), Indianexpress (negotiation precondition), The Tribune (Jaiswal), Economic Times (religious significance), Hindustan Times (pilgrim batch breakdown)

Bulldozers First and Questions Later

Shree Saraswati Basic School in Manohara had 275 students and 15 teachers when the bulldozers showed up without notice. Staff only realized the building was coming down when police started hauling out belongings; the CCTV cameras, router, and library books got buried, though the new textbooks made it out. On Monday, students turned up anyway, dragging desks and benches into a borrowed community hall in Madhyapur Thimi, where principal Indira Mahat is running multi-grade classes in two rooms and under courtyard tents. The Supreme Court has ordered the government to come up with documents showing how the required process was followed at Manohara and four other eviction sites. We’ll see if they have any.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (1.2M landless), Online Khabar (school mergers), Khabarhub (Supreme Court, protests)

Six Thousand Rupees and a Prayer

More than 76,000 depositors have filed claims worth over Rs 45 billion ($296 million) against failed cooperatives, and the government's response is to point to a revolving fund that holds about 0.54 percent of total claims (Rs 250 million or ~$1.6 million). The Problematic Cooperative Management Committee has been able to claw back another Rs 350 million ($2.3 million) from debtors, but split between the 58,000 smaller savers, each person's share works out to only about Rs 6,000 ($39). Returning money to that group alone would take roughly Rs 6.66 billion ($43.8 million). Minister Pratibha Rawal says debtor names will be published and bank accounts frozen after a 35-day notice period. Committee Chairman Dilliram Acharya says the fund "will not be spent easily."

Read more: Ratopati

Sixty Thousand Souls Hit the Exit

Around 2,075 Nepalis board flights for foreign jobs every day, and the Department of Foreign Employment counted 62,265 departures in the 31 (or 32? days - it’s not clear how they counted) between March 25 and April 26. A temporary stop on labor approvals for 12 Gulf and West Asian countries between March 1 and April 20 barely dented the numbers. The figures don't fully capture the whole picture. Workers like Dhan Bahadur Gurung, a 47-year-old who earned Rs 35,000 ($230) a month in Saudi Arabia, says he drank four or five energy drinks instead of water to push through the heat, and came home with kidneys that had given up. He now does dialysis three times a week, four hours at a time. Apparently his situation isn’t rare.

Read more: myRepublica (monthly departure headcounts), Online Khabar (kidney failure costs), The Kathmandu Post (SSF remittance share).

Ordnances Coming and Going

President Paudel signed a Constitutional Council ordinance on Tuesday after at first sending it back to cabinet. The amendment changes how the Constitutional Council operates and the details are thin, but the way it was has gone back and forth is an indication that something may be afoot. The same day, the Communications Ministry invoked the new "Special Provision Ordinance on the Removal of Public Officials from Office" to clear out 36 politically appointed office-holders in nine agencies, including the chairs of Gorkhapatra Sansthan, Press Council Nepal, the Nepal Telecommunications Authority, and the National Information Commission. Opposition lawmakers cried foul and said it was a bypass of parliament by a government that already holds close to a two-thirds majority and could legislate through the House if it wanted to.

Read more: The Rising Nepal (36 officials), The Annapurna Express (constitutional basis), The Himalayan Times (return-reissue sequence)

Holding Center On The Flood Plain

Ujyalo Nepal Party chairman Kulman Ghising visited the Kirtipur holding center last week and found 3,159 screened squatters crammed into tents on flood-prone government land, with kids missing school and families unable to service bank loans after losing jobs and businesses. One person has has already died by suicide. RSP wants the government to park the bulldozers everywhere except already-acquired state land until an empowered authority finishes a full report on the squatter problem.

Read more: myRepublica (RSP manifesto commitment), Ratopati (Ghising visit findings)

Widows Win Back Inheritance

The Supreme Court has struck down a provision that forced widows to surrender property inherited from a dead husband the moment that they remarried. A constitutional bench led by Acting Chief Justice Sapana Pradhan Malla ruled Section 214(2) of the 2017 Civil Code was an abridgment of constitutional guarantees of equality, dignified life, and property rights, all of which the old rule suspended at the altar. Under the scrapped sub-section, a remarried widow's first-husband property passed to his children, reverting to her only if there were none.

Read more: The Himalayan Times

Carrier Redraws South Asia

Nepal Airlines posted a route map on Wednesday showing all of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh as Pakistani territory, sending #BoycottNepalAirlines trending through Indian social media like a wildfire. The state-owned carrier deleted the post and apologized Thursday, calling it a "cartographic inaccuracy" that did not reflect the official position of either the airline or Nepal. An internal review is underway.

Read more: Newindianexpress (Sugauli Treaty), Republicworld (relations)

Rules for Thee, Not for State-Owned Me

Nine of 37 insurers remain are still below the Nepal Insurance Authority's minimum capital thresholds, three years after the April 2023 deadline. The laggards include two state-owned firms. The NIA has yet to set a new deadline.

Read more: myRepublica

Japan Dug It, China To Run It

The government signed a five-year operations and maintenance contract with Yusin-ART JV, a China-Nepal joint venture, to run the Japanese-financed Nagdhunga-Sisnekhola tunnel. The 2,688-meter bore is 98 percent complete, and needs about 150 staff to be fully trained before a full opening that’s expected (hoped for?) within three months. Construction on the tunnel started in October 2019 and initially had a 42-month timeline. Once it opens, the Sisnekhola-to-Balambhu trip will get reduced from 33 minutes uphill to about seven straight though.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Landslides Turn Highway Map Into Swiss Cheese

Pre-monsoon landslides have blocked sections of the Araniko, Mid-Hill, BP, and Kanti Lokpath highways in Lalitpur, Makwanpur, Lamjung, Kavre, and Ilam, as well as the Bhalubang-Pyuthan road. The Araniko Highway at Kodari, the main crossing into China, has been closed since April 29 and, as of yet, has no scheduled date to reopen. A handful of stretches, including Bhojpur and the Beni-Jomsom road in Myagdi, have been able to handle some one-way traffic. Police tell travelers to expect more of the same through the rainy season.

Read more: myRepublica (Araniko closure), The Annapurna Express (Ilam, BP Highway)

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

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Nepal Weekly - 2026-04-29

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 01:53:28 GMT

Nepal business, finance and trade news, every Wednesday.

Photo by Raphael Rychetsky on Unsplash

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Oli's Old Playbook

The cabinet summoned a joint parliamentary session on Tuesday, suspended it by Thursday evening, and then recommended the President issue a Constitutional Council ordinance, all before anyone outside the cabinet had a chance to ask why. The President's Office gave "special reasons" for the suspension. The government offered nothing. Senior advocate Surendra Bhandari put it bluntly: a government nearing a two-thirds majority has no legal need for ordinances, and the last time Nepal went this route, KP Sharma Oli packed 52 constitutional posts through exactly this mechanism. The new ordinance would let a body of the Prime Minister, Speaker, Deputy Speaker, National Assembly Chairman, and Chief Justice make appointments by majority vote of whoever shows up, a quorum rule tailor-made for a government that can't guarantee friendly faces across the table. Nepali Congress called it executive encroachment on legislative authority. CPN-UML's Mahesh Basnet called it "childish." President Paudel rejected a near-identical ordinance from the Sushila Karki government months ago.

Read more: Ratopati (quorum rule), myRepublica (suspension), Ratopati (NCP dissent), Khabarhub (cooperative ordinance)

Hong Kong's Most Inconvenient Houseguest

The Cabinet recalled Consul General Bindeswar Prasad Lekhak from Hong Kong on Thursday after officials came to the conclusion that he had been hosting fugitive former PM Sher Bahadur Deuba and his wife Arzu Rana Deuba, who have been holed up in Hong Kong's Stanley neighborhood since the third week of April. A Kathmandu District Court handed down an arrest warrant on April 9 on money laundering charges, and the Department of Money Laundering Investigation has frozen all movable and immovable assets registered to the couple and their family. Lekhak, close to Nepali Congress figure and former Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak, has 20 days to report to the Foreign Ministry. Three other consuls general appointed alongside him under the Oli government's political quota are still in their posts.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Bulldozers Hit the Bagmati

Bulldozers hit Thapathali on Saturday and haven't stopped since, working through Gairigaun, Sinamangal, Shantinagar, and into Kageshwari Manohara Municipality by Sunday. The clearance will affect 3,496 households in 27 wards in Kathmandu, Bhaktapur, and Lalitpur, the full scope of informal riverbank settlement documented by the Bagmati Civilization Integrated Development Committee. So far 214 families have come into government contact and are being put up in hotels as officials screen for "genuine squatters" before moving confirmed cases to government apartments in Ward No. 1 of Nagarjun Municipality, with promises of relocation within two weeks. Earlier attempts had stalled for years over coordination gaps between agencies.

Read more: myRepublica (ward locations), Spotlight Nepal (Dasharath Stadium)

The Clean-Hands Cabinet's Dirty Month

Sudan Gurung lasted less than four weeks as Home Minister before resigning on April 22 over alleged share market dealings with another businessman who is in custody on money laundering charges. Gurung helped orchestrate the Gen-Z protests that brought the current government to power on the promise of exactly this kind of accountability, and the Prime Minister had personally overridden RSP chief Rabi Lamichhane's objections to put him in the cabinet. He’s the second minister gone in a month after Labour Minister Deepak Kumar Sah was sacked on April 9 for slotting his wife onto the board of the Nepal Health Insurance Board. The PM has taken on the Home Ministry himself for now.

Read more: myRepublica (Hami Nepal transactions)

India's Tea Test Steeps Nepal's Exporters

Effective May 1, India's Tea Board is demanding lab testing on every tea consignment that crosses the border. For an industry that ships 86 percent of its 15,600 metric tons of yearly exports to a single buyer, this is.. not good news. Agriculture Minister Gita Chaudhary celebrated the 30th National Tea Day on April 28 by promising more investment, new markets, and encouragement for young and women entrepreneurs, but in the meantime, 14,500 metric tons of Nepali tea now are now under the new, slow, and expensive testing regime.

Read more: Ratopati

A Bag of Rice Too Far

Madhesi youth came together at Kathmandu's Maitighar Mandala on Saturday with placards reading "Don't kill the poor people" and "Respect Madhesi people," protesting a customs rule that taxes goods worth more than Rs 100 ($0.66) brought in from India. Rice, sugar, and household basics from a morning market trip are now getting scrutiny at the border. Delhi has noticed, and MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said India is "aware of reports." The rule, rolled out a couple weeks ago during the Nepali New Year, is making things unpleasant for people across the Terai.

Read more: Hindustan Times (MEA), MSN (Home Minister)

Thirteen Days to Empty

Petrol went up to a price of Rs 232 ($1.53) per liter, as the new government has raised prices four times in a month. The more concerning figure is the 13 days that is apparently the entire strategic petroleum reserve (as compared to the 90-day target Nepal committed to after India's 2015 blockade left hospitals short of medicine, factories shuttered, and earthquake relief stuck in queues while black-market petrol sold roadside in mineral water bottles for triple the official rate). The Lothar oil terminal remains under construction, and other expansion plans exist on paper, but that’s not going to offer much relief any time soon.

Mosquitoes Find Their Way to Everest Base Camp

Aedes mosquitoes have been confirmed at 2,438m in Jumla, well above the 2,100m ceiling that researchers long considered their upper limit. Dengue was found in 76 of Nepal's 77 districts during 2024 and 2025. Solu Khumbu, home to Everest base camp, has reported infections in patients with no travel history, suggesting that the vector itself is making its arrival known. Researchers blame warming temperatures and a thickening road network for ferrying both mosquito and the virus into Himalayan valleys.

Temple Ball, Take Two

Nearly fifty years after Nepal banned the cannabis trade that once made its "temple ball" hashish a hippie rite-of-passage, two subnational governments are cracking the door back open. Gandaki Province has put forward a legalization bill covering medicinal and industrial use (that bill is now sitting with the Economic Development Committee), and Ilam Municipality has begun a pilot that allows farmers grow hemp for fiber (although that’s being monitored to protect against diversion). Both developments chip away at the freeze that was put in place with the 1976 Narcotic Drugs Control Act. Chief Minister Surendra Raj Pandey, who put a cannabis cultivation study in his 100-day list, has been talking up the crop from the assembly floor down.

Nepal Weekly - 2026-04-22

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 05:02:14 GMT

Nepal business, finance and trade news, every Wednesday.

Photo by Kabi Acharya on Unsplash

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The Minister Who Can't Stop Making News

Home Minister Sudan Gurung, a founding shareholder in Star Micro Insurance and Liberty Micro Life, is battling resignation calls from the Nepali Congress, civil society groups, and even voices within his own RSP after documents surfaced connecting both companies to Deepak Bhatt, now under arrest in a Rs 3.7 billion ($24.3 million) money laundering investigation. PM Balendra Shah has demanded a clarification (in writing), which Gurung's secretariat says it has supplied. Gurung's defense rests on a few points: his Rs 2.5 million stake was disclosed inside a Rs 20 million ($132,000) portfolio on the Council of Ministers' website, all transactions went through banking channels, and money laundering cases fall to the Finance Ministry's investigation department, not his Home Ministry. It’s not a bad argument, but less convenient for the minister is the now-deleted social media post in which he quoted Bill Gates on why dying poor is your own fault. Gurung, for now, is still in office.

Read more: myRepublica (declaration discrepancies), Nepali Times (loan-funded shares), myRepublica (civil society demands), Online Khabar (minister's defense), The Himalayan Times (jurisdiction argument)

Washington Calls on Kathmandu, Skips the Top Floor

S. Paul Kapur, the US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, finished a three-day Kathmandu visit Wednesday without ever sitting down with the Prime Minister. The gap was deliberate as the US side apparently never requested the meeting. Kapur did work through much of the rest of the cabinet, meeting Foreign Minister Shishir Khanal and Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle, who both promised to help clear the way for FDI. The ICT pitch was the clearest tell of Washington's priorities when Kapur met American Chamber of Commerce leaders and posted publicly about "digital infrastructure, AI adoption, cybersecurity, and sharing US technological expertise." That’s language that tracks closely with Washington's effort to keep Huawei out of the country's 5G rollout (Huawei now supplies most of Nepal's 4G equipment). The finance ministry meeting also resulting in the airing of a list of American grievances, including unresolved tax disputes involving Cotiviti, Coca-Cola, and the Dolma Impact Fund. Wagle said those would be handled through legal channels.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (elections context), Socialnews Xyz (RSP meeting, 5G framing), The Annapurna Express (immigration topic), The Kathmandu Post (MCC compact, tax disputes), The Kathmandu Post (ministers' FDI pledges)

The Hundred-Rupee Border War

Armed Police Force staff with loudspeakers have spread out over the 1,750-kilometer Indian border, announcing that no exemption will apply to civilians, government employees, or NGO workers on Indian goods worth more than Rs 100 (about $0.75, or 63 Indian rupees). The rule has always been on the books, but now the government plans to enforce it. Teams of customs officers, revenue investigators, district officials, and police have been searching pedestrians, cyclists, and sniffing through shopping bags. Duties are from 5 to 80 percent depending on the item. Nearly 50 rural markets along Bihar's 378-kilometer border say they’ve seen a drop in Nepali footfall during peak wedding season. Rajiv Jha, a member of Shah's own Rastriya Swatantra Party, says the limit is "extremely low and impractical."

Read more: Economic Times (Birgunj protests), Times of India (Rs60 lakh baseline), The Kathmandu Post (vehicle fee schedule), Times of India (shopkeeper quotes), The Kathmandu Post (45% price gap)

Graduation Day, No Cap and Gown

Development assistance collapsed 73 percent year-on-year in the first months of the 2025-26 fiscal year, dropping from Rs 37.18 billion ($250 million) to Rs 9.54 billion ($64 million), a preview of what November's LDC graduation is going to look like on the ground. EU and Japanese trade preferences cushioning apparel and textile exports will disappear when the diploma is given.

Thapa Wins the Party, Inherits Rubble

Nepal's Supreme Court on April 17 gave Gagan Thapa clean legal title to the Nepali Congress presidency, upholding the Election Commission's recognition of the Central Working Committee elected at January's convention and ending Sher Bahadur Deuba's three-month rearguard action. The ruling is unambiguous but the math is not. NC won only 38 of 275 seats in March, its worst showing ever, and Thapa himself resigned after the results before the CWC refused to accept it. The Deuba camp, now operating under former acting president Purna Bahadur Khadka, agreed on Saturday to accept the verdict, then gathered at a Dhumbarahi hotel on Sunday afternoon to work out what comes next.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (judges named), Thewire In (RSP competition), myRepublica (Thapa quotes), Desh Sanchar (Deuba camp reaction), The Kathmandu Post (seat-loss figures)

Rule 259, Written for a Friend

The House of Representatives Rules Drafting Committee handed its draft procedural code to Speaker Dol Prasad Aryal on Tuesday, and tucked inside it was Rule 259, which sets aside parliamentary regulations as federal special law and a "special privilege of the House." The committee was led by RSP lawmaker Ganesh Parajuli, and opposition members wasted little time reading the fine print. The provision, they say, is engineered to shield RSP Chairman Rabi Lamichhane from the cases now working their way through the courts.

Read more: The Rising Nepal (committee process stats), Khabarhub (Speaker refinement plan), Ratopati (Rule 259 controversy), Ratopati (petition filer named), The Rising Nepal (court rejection confirmed)

Wagle to Investment Board: Two Out of Fifty-Five is "Shameful"

Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle told the Investment Board's monitoring committee on Tuesday it was "shameful" that just 2 of 55 approved foreign investment projects have reached the construction stage, and asked on the record who, exactly, is responsible. If the 14th meeting shows no improvement, he warned, the government will take "strict measures." The same week, Wagle told cabinet ministers they can add new budget lines only by cutting old ones, and did away with the long-standing practice of "abanda" unallocated budget allocations from fiscal 2083/84.

Read more: Ratopati (advisor quotes), Ratopati (budget figures), Wionews (legal barrier)

Balen's Wealth Hunters Get Badges, Not Handcuffs

Retired Supreme Court Justice Rajendra Kumar Bhandari is chairing a new commission with a mandate to scrub through the assets of every major political figure and senior official who has held office since 2005, including former prime ministers Deuba, Oli, and Dahal. Cabinet authorized the panel on April 15, nineteen days after the government was sworn in. The commission is empowered to collect, review, and verify asset declarations, but what it can’tt do is arrest or prosecute. Actionable findings get handed to the CIAA and the Department of Money Laundering Investigation. A second phase, as per the government's published reform plan, is expected eventually reach back to 1990.

Read more: Nepal News (286 officials count), OCCRP (10 arrests noted)

USAID Exit Hits Family Planning

The Health Ministry has cut its contraceptive budget 32% to Rs 170 million ($1.1 million) for fiscal year 2026-27, and UNFPA has slashed its annual contribution from $3.2 million to $1.06 million after USAID suspended grants to both the ministry and the UN agency. Shelves are stocked for now, but Sarmila Dahal, who heads family planning at the Department of Health Services, has been clear about the consequences. "If the budget is not increased, there will be a shortage." The last stockout dragged on for about two years. Half of Nepal's 1.2 million pregnancies in 2017 were unintended, and nearly 359,000 of those ended in abortion.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Rubber Stamp to Red Pen

Australian student visa approvals for Nepali applicants collapsed from 96.8% in June 2025 to 38.7% in February, a drop the Department of Home Affairs has been careful not to call a crackdown. The consistent failure point appears to be money, since many applicants show loans enough to cover only the first year, sudden large account deposits with no savings history, self-declared income streams that can't be verified, and multiple income sources conveniently totaling the benchmark figure.

NEPSE Gives Traders More Rope

The Nepal Stock Exchange widened its daily circuit breaker from 10 percent to 15 percent this week in the biggest shakeup to local trading mechanics in years. The new rules also let investors place buy and sell orders around the clock, though execution will remain pinned to the 11am-3pm window and round-the-clock ordering won't kick in until NEPSE issues a formal implementation order, which it hasn't got around to yet. Intraday safeguards have been redesigned as well. Now a 5 percent move in the morning session will be cause for a 15-minute trading halt, and an 8 percent swing after 1pm will shut the market for the rest of the day. The pre-open price band has been widened to 5 percent from 2 percent, and the regular-session order band loosened to 3 percent from 2 percent.

Read more: myRepublica (effective date), The Kathmandu Post (Sebon approval)

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Nepal Weekly - 2026-04-15

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 16:09:10 GMT

Nepal business, finance and trade news, every Wednesday.

Photo by Jochen van Wylick on Unsplash

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Private Press Prints Its Protest

Dozens of private newspapers blanked their front pages with giant question marks on Monday in protest of an April 1 order that funnels all government advertising exclusively to state-owned Gorkhapatra, Radio Nepal, and Nepal Television. Nepal Samacharpatra, Rajdhani, Madhyanha, and others replaced headlines and body text with the symbols, in a unified opposition to a policy they say threatens their survival. Private outlets collectively receive around Rs 3.84 billion ($25 million) from a total government ad budget of Rs 10.39 billion ($68 million). State media gets roughly Rs 1 billion ($6.6 million). The government says it's cutting costs and standardizing outreach, but media houses counter that choking off revenue will collapse everything from printing plants to journalism schools. Private publishers also claim roughly Rs 3.25 billion ($21 million) is already lost to corruption, so there may be better places to save a buck.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (corruption claim), myRepublica (journalist response)

Show Us the Receipts

Balen's cabinet made their asset details public on April 12, a little less than three weeks after taking office, a first for Nepal. Its seems, however, that transparency without documentation might be riskier than silence. Prime Minister Shah listed social media as his main income source, with Rs 14.6 million ($96,000) in the bank and four million Facebook followers but no land to his name. Home Minister Sudan Gurung said he’s got 89 tolas of gold and Rs 43.1 million ($284,000) in stock market investments. The numbers caused street protests at Maitighar Mandala, as demonstrators demanded proof of income sources as well as tax records. Former Finance Secretary Rameshwar Khanal said that tax filings should carry more weight than public declarations, which is maybe a polite way of saying the ministers' explanations need receipts.

Read more: Online Khabar (asset amounts), myRepublica (protest)

Balen's Growth Target Meets Gravity

The new government published a five-year plan on Tuesday that ~~dreams of~~ targets 7% average annual growth, $100 billion in GDP, as well as 1.5 million new jobs. The World Bank and Asian Development Bank both think that FY26 growth is going to slow down to between 2.3% and 2.7%, reduced from an already uninspired 4.6% showing last year. The PM’s draft "national commitment" document, which folds his Rastriya Swatantra Party's 100-point agenda in with manifestos from six other parliamentary parties, wants to more than double per capita income from $1,400 to $3,000 and cut “multidimensional” poverty to 10%. Let’s see.

Read more: Spotlight Nepal (ADB inflation forecast), Khabarhub (policy specifics)

Seventeen Ambassadors, No Pecking Order

Balen Shah pulled off something no Nepali prime minister has tried before: he sat down with 17 ambassadors and diplomatic mission heads at once on April 8, treating India, China, the United States, Japan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Qatar, and the UN Resident Coordinator as equals in the same meeting. Past leaders met foreign envoys in more informal settings, preserving the traditional hierarchy where New Delhi and Beijing got separate, carefully calibrated attention. The joint session flips that script by way of engagement with everyone, alignment with no one, in what one analyst calls "multi-vector autonomy."

Read more: Times of India (domestic reform agenda), Theprint In (April 8 details), The Annapurna Express (multi-vector autonomy concept), Spotlight Nepal ($1,400→$3,000 target)

Four Hikes in a Month and the Mayor's Carpooling

The cost of fuel hit Rs219 a litre ($1.48) on Friday, the fourth price increase in a month and the highest in South Asia, topping Pakistan's $1.36 and leaving Bangladesh's $0.87 looking like a distant memory. The Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) is still bleeding Rs7.81 billion every fortnight despite the hikes and now owes Indian Oil Corporation nearly Rs18 billion. The state oil company floated an odd-even vehicle rule to save fuel, though the government settled for a two-day weekend instead of the proposed four-day work week. Transport fares are already up 15 to 21 percent, and the NOC's latest statement suggests another 20 to 30 percent price jump could be coming. The Asian Development Bank warned Friday that the West Asia conflict keeps pushing global oil prices higher, with inflation projected to hit 3.7 percent this fiscal year before climbing to 4.5 percent next year.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (regional price comparison), myRepublica

Oli Walks Free After 13 Days

Former prime minister KP Sharma Oli and former home minister Ramesh Lekhak were released Monday after the Supreme Court let their latest detention order expire, ending 13 days behind bars on criminal negligence charges tied to 19 deaths during September's Gen Z protests. The court noted that statements had already been taken and that Oli is seriously ill, but stopped short of calling the detention unlawful. Both men walked on the condition they show up when summoned. Oli claimed vindication on Facebook, calling his arrest "unlawful" and driven by "prejudice and revenge." The case remains open and the court instructed investigators to wrap up quickly.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Buddha's Backyard Gets an Eviction Notice

Nepal's Supreme Court has ordered the demolition of all industrial facilities within 15 kilometres of Lumbini, putting Rs 70 billion ($460 million) in investment and 10,000 jobs on the chopping block to protect the UNESCO World Heritage site where the Buddha was born. The ruling, issued last August but published in full text last Tuesday, targets 40 heavy and medium-scale firms including 11 cement factories in the Lumbini industrial corridor between Bethari and Sundi in Mayadevi Rural Municipality. The case dates to 2019, when senior advocate Prakash Mani Sharma filed a writ arguing that unregulated industrial construction was irreversibly damaging the archaeological integrity and spiritual sanctity of the site. Lumbini pulled in roughly 2.3 million visitors in fiscal year 2024-25: 1.46 million Nepalis, 570,000 Indians, and more than 252,000 from elsewhere.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Beijing Reads Kathmandu the Riot Act

Chinese Ambassador Zhang Maoming sat down with Home Minister Sudan Gurung on Monday and delivered blunt some blunt talking points by telling the Minister to keep government hands off Tibetan and Taiwanese activities. Zhang mentioned the brief appearance of a Taiwanese flag at a March 28 cultural festival in Kathmandu and warned Gurung against sending any official representation to the May 27 swearing-in of Penpa Tsering, the re-elected Sikyong of the Central Tibetan Administration in Dharamshala. Tsering won a second five-year term in February with more than 60 percent of the vote. Gurung, who has faced accusations of backing Tibetan refugee youth during last year's Gen Z protests, a charge he has repeatedly denied, assured Beijing that no Nepali soil would be used against China. The ambassador also raised concerns about continued "separatist" activities by Tibetans and the registration status of Tibetan refugees.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

784 Pages of Helicopter Fraud

Prosecutors filed a 784-page charge sheet against the Everest helicopter rescue ring, using organized crime statutes that could multiply prison terms for anyone who knowingly enabled the scam. Field coordinator Vivek Pandey confessed on page 252 that he arranged choppers for tourists with headaches and coordinated with hospitals to fabricate altitude sickness diagnoses, though he's still denying it constituted organized crime. The charges cover five categories of fraud, from forged flight manifests to inflated medical claims that pulled $20 million from insurers between 2022 and 2025. Canada issued a Level 2 travel advisory warning its citizens about pressure tactics, falsified documents, and suspiciously cheap trekking packages.

Read more: Climbing (director implicated), The Travel (traveler protection tips)

Ninety-Four Billion and Counting

Nepalis sent Rs 93.89 billion ($617 million) out of the country for overseas education in the first eight months of this fiscal year, up 8 percent from the same period last year and part of a climb that's been running since the pandemic. The net outflow, after accounting for the Rs 4.10 billion foreign students brought in, hit Rs 89.79 billion. Former National Planning Commission vice-chair Prakash Kumar Shrestha says the government talks about improving education but has no policy to bring graduates back, and schools here don't prioritize foreign degrees even when students do return.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Balen's Bureaucrats Get a Week to Empty In-Trays

The government launched a "Zero Pending Files" drive from April 13 to 20, ordering every public office to clear backlogs and track stalled decisions daily. Files pending beyond three, seven, or 15 days face will get a mandatory review, and officials are being told to stop kicking decisions upstairs unnecessarily. The procurement office also released a draft amendment to the 19-year-old Public Procurement Act on April 8, proposing reverse auctions, forfeiting bank guarantees if contractors pocket advances without starting work within 30 days, and holding project officials personally accountable. The Prime Minister's Office published an 18-point "national commitment" synthesizing the economic plan outlined in Story 3 and requested feedback by April 23. A separate initiative targets reclaiming government land still occupied by party-affiliated trade unions despite a 2022 policy requiring them to pay leases or vacate.

Read more: Khabarhub (income target), The Kathmandu Post (six parties listed), myRepublica (tracking mandate), myRepublica (30-day forfeiture), The Kathmandu Post (monthly lease)

Passport Plus What, Exactly?

The Department of Foreign Employment told migrant workers on April 6 to show up at Tribhuvan International Airport with air tickets, invoices, and receipts for fees paid to manpower agencies. The Department of Immigration said workers need only a passport and labour approval, nothing more. The contradiction revived a turf war that last flared in July 2023, when 138 workers bound for Kuwait were stopped at the airport despite holding valid approvals. Labour expert Rameshwor Nepal called the receipt requirement "immature," noting that under free visa, free ticket programmes in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, the UAE, and Mauritius, workers often don't have receipts to present. The Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies objected that mandating receipts without policy reform would burden workers caught between two agencies that can't agree on paperwork. As of publication, the receipt requirement has not been formally withdrawn, leaving workers to guess which set of rules applies at the gate.

Read more: Online Khabar (criticism), myRepublica (clarification)

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Nepal Weekly - 2026-04-08

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 04:21:47 GMT

Nepal business, finance and trade news, every Wednesday.

Photo by Tomasz Brengos on Unsplash

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Balen Takes Office, Sends KP Oli to Jail

Balendra Shah's first act as prime minister was to arrest his predecessor. Within hours of taking office, the new PM told police to nab former prime minister KP Sharma Oli and ex-Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak over the September 2025 crackdown that killed at least 76 protesters. The move resulted in street clashes between Oli's supporters and security forces in Kathmandu; Kathmandu District Court gave investigators a five-day remand to question both men, later extended by two more days. Shah, whose Rastriya Swatantra Party came to power on the back of those same protests, had promised accountability during his campaign. Oli's Communist Party of Nepal (UML) raised the arrests in Thursday's first session of the House of Representatives, accusing the government of political persecution.

Read more: The Himalayan Times (protest violence), OCCRP (Bhatta financials), The Himalayan Times (Agrawal arrest), MSN (cabinet makeup)

Everest's $20 Million Baking Soda Scam

Police charged 32 people over a fake helicopter rescue racket that defrauded insurers of at least $19.69 million, a caper that was first exposed in 2018 when a government probe fingered 15 companies involved (no action was taken at the time). The operation operated by way of guides sickening trekkers with baking soda mixed into food or contaminated meals to justify evacuations, then filing multiple insurance claims for single flights and getting hospitals to issue inflated medical invoices. Ten suspects have been arrested, including people from trekking agencies, helicopter companies and hospitals. Investigators found that guides also terrified some tourists that were showing mild symptoms of altitude sickness into unnecessary airlifts.

Read more: Straits Times (AFP confirmation), Asian News Network (financials)

Two-Day Weekend, Zero Choice

Civil servants have been gifted a two-day weekend for the first time, and nobody's celebrating. The government shut down all offices and schools on both Saturdays and Sundays beginning this week, in an emergency fuel conservation measure. Aviation fuel prices nearly doubled on Thursday, and the state-owned Nepal Oil Corporation has been hemorrhaging money on petroleum products even as it’s put price hikes in place. Officials are now exploring ways they might convert petrol and diesel vehicles to electric power. Nepal relies almost entirely on India for fuel supplies, leaving it exposed to both price shocks and Indian decision-making.

Read more: Al Jazeera (office hours), MSN (EV conversion)

Taxes Cut, Oil Corp Still Bleeding

Nepal Oil Corporation has lost Rs 11.72 billion ($77 million) in just 15 days, caught between rising international prices and frozen retail rates. The Cabinet has, in an attempt to stem the bleeding, cut customs duties on fuel by half, but it may not be enough. Gasoline currently sells at Rs 202 per liter, but NOC's import cost of Rs 154 plus Rs 66 in taxes pushes the cost to Rs 220, leaving a per-liter subsidy loss of Rs 18. The Diesel story is even worse, it has a Rs 121/ liter loss at current retail prices.

Read more: Spotlight Nepal (tax figures), The Annapurna Express (customs cut)

Balen's Broom Sweeps 167 Points Off the Board

The NEPSE shed 167 points in the days after PM Balen Shah's government took office, a 5.7% slide that’s been a real-time barometer of investor anxiety. Markets dipped 71 points on the first trading day, then oscillated through a few brief recoveries before continuing the descent as the administration showed an appetite for enforcement.

Read more: The Himalayan Times (market), The Annapurna Express (example)

Half a Billion in Broken Glass

The National Planning Commission put a price tag on last year's Gen Z protests, and it’s Rs 84.45 billion ($555 million). The damage was widespread, across government offices, private businesses, community assets, and torched vehicles. The private sector took a Rs 33.54 billion ($221 million) hit, and the government and public sector losses ran to Rs 44.93 billion ($296 million). Rebuilding is expected to cost Rs 36.30 billion ($239 million) over the next two and a half years.

Read more: Spotlight Nepal

Big Spenders Stay Home

Nepal welcomed 120,516 tourists in March, a similar number to the same month last year, but the headline number is hiding a retreat of high-value visitors. American arrivals were down 28%, European visitors fell 19%, and UK numbers slid from about 6k to a little less than 5,000. A 21% increase from India and other SAARC countries papered over the gap, even though spring is normally when Western climbers and trekkers fill the lodges. Nepal Tourism Board CEO Deepak Raj Joshi is blaming the West Asia conflict for disrupting transit routes (he was personally stranded at Doha airport for a week).

Read more: Online Khabar

Three-Quarters Electric and Rising

Electric vehicles made up nearly three-quarters of new car sales according to fiscal year 2025 customs data, one of the world's highest adoption rates, and some drivers are giving thanks as diesel prices go through the roof. Gyanu Pattel, who swapped his Tata Sumo for a 10-seater electric van a year ago, now spends $9 daily on charging for his 140km Birgunj-Kathmandu shuttle, down from the $45 he was paying for diesel. The tailwind is significant because Nepal is able to generates electricity from its own rivers instead of importing fossil fuels. Charging stations have sprung up across the country since about 2020, and electric minivan drivers have become more willing to drive with empty seats since fuel costs aren't eating their margins, meaning unexpected efficiencies are being found in shorter wait time and roomier rides for passengers.

Kathmandu Forms Committee Number 1,001 to Fix Power Bottleneck

Speaking of hydropower… The government set up a committee to figuring out why 13,000 MW of private hydropower projects are stuck waiting for Power Purchase Agreements, in a backlog that's been frustrating developers for years. The panel, is expected to find bottlenecks in the PPA process and recommend reforms.

Read more: myRepublica

Cull and Kill

Bird flu was reported in 23 locations in five districts, forcing authorities to destroy 104,000 fowl and ban the poultry trade in the eastern belt. Sunsari had a dozen outbreaks, Morang seven, with cases also turning up in Jhapa, Chitwan, and Kathmandu, where a crow tested positive on the Tribhuvan University campus. The eastern belt is responsible for a significant share of national poultry production; the trade ban is already pushing prices higher in city markets.

Read more: Online Khabar

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

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Nepal Weekly - 2026-04-01

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 07:24:13 GMT

Nepal business, finance and trade news, every Wednesday.

Photo by Sudip Shrestha on Unsplash

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First Majority in 27 Years

Nepal got its youngest prime minister on Friday when 35-year-old Balendra Shah took the oath of office. The former structural engineer and (**check notes**) rap artist leads the Rastriya Swatantra Party, which won 182 of 275 parliamentary seats in the March 5 election, the first single-party majority in 27 years. Shah, who served as Kathmandu mayor from 2022 to 2026 before stepping down to run, defeated former prime minister KP Sharma Oli by large margin in his own Jhapa constituency. His 15 member cabinet was also announced; it includes five women and shows a technocratic tilt. Deputy prime minister and finance minister Swarnim Wagle holds a master’s degree from Harvard, health minister Nisha Mehta is a nurse, for example. Shah kept the defence and industry portfolios for himself. The first cabinet meeting approved a 100-decision governance blueprint covering a wide range of issue. Details in the Katmandu Post, below.

Read more: AP News (protest context), The Kathmandu Post (constitutional process), The Himalayan Times (Vedic traditions), NDTV (Modi congratulates, seats), The Kathmandu Post (blueprint)

Rapper With New Job Arrests His Predecessor

Police arrested former Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and ex-Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak early Saturday morning, less than 24 hours after Balendra Shah took oath as a Prime Minister of Nepal. The arrests are based on the commission report that found 76 people died during the September protests, with at least 19 killed on the first day when police fired on demonstrators protesting for anti corruption movement. The commission, was led by former justice Gauri Bahadur Karki, concluded Oli and Lekhak showed "extreme negligence" and made "no effort to stop or control the firing," though it couldn't establish a direct shoot order was given. New Home Minister Sudan Gurung wrote on social media: "No one is above the law. This is not revenge against anyone, just the beginning of justice.", but CPN-UML Secretary Mahesh Basnet says selective arrests tied to the Karki Commission report could push the country back into conflict, calling the government’s approach “controversial and conspiratorial.” Also see the next story.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (warrant legality challenge), Christian Daily (protest clash details), Independent (sentencing specifics), BBC (Oli medical condition), myRepublica (court appearance timeline), myRepublica (threat of more conflict)

Burnt Money Burns Back

The anti-money laundering unit also arrested former energy minister Deepak Khadka Sunday from his residence in Budhanilkantha, months after protesters set his house on fire and videos spread online showing demonstrators tossing cash found inside into the air. After nearly six months of enquiries, the Department of Money Laundering Investigation, has launched the full investigation involving three former prime ministers- Sher Bahadur Deuba, KP Sharma Oli, and Pushpa Kamal Dahal, as well as former minister Arzu Rana Deuba. Burnt pieces of banknote recovered from several leaders’ home after the September 9, 2025, vandalism were confirmed to be genuine by lab tests. Khadka’s detention came just a day after Oli and former home minister Ramesh Lekhak were arrested.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (first PM probe), DW (protest death toll)

Infinity and Beyond the Travel Ban

Money laundering investigators stopped Infinity Holdings chairman Deepak Bhatta from leaving the country, reopening the case that had previously stalled under the previous government. Bhatta, accused of acting as a broker to win government contracts, is under scrutiny over a suspicious Rs 450 million (~$3 million) transfer in 2021 from Jagdamba Steel that never appeared in the company's audit report. The financial trail was flagged by Nepal Rastra Bank's Financial Information Unit in 2022, which noted that the money was moved from Jagdamba Steel's account to one of Bhatta's personal accounts. The investigation has grown to include the Deuba family, with police stopping demolition work at Deuba's Budhanilkantha residence to preserve evidence.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post (Budhi Gandaki contract), Online Khabar (Rana connections)

The House Now Loses

The telecoms regulator blocked all online betting apps and websites within 24 hours on Sunday, after an order from the communications ministry. The ban is similar to a crackdown that took place in India last year. All gambling is already supposed to be illegal, but there is concern about the rise in online betting among young users.

Tokyo Built It, Beijing Will Run It

The Nagdhunga Tunnel, funded with a Rs 16 billion ($105 million) Japanese concessional loan is still unopened almost a year after construction was more-or-less finished, but is expected to open soon under Chinese operation. A joint venture between China's Yusin and local firm ART won a five-year contract with bid of Rs 1.10 billion ($7.2 million), beating six other bidders. The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) had cautioned against choosing a Chinese firm, but Nepali procurement rules award to the lowest bidder. Trial runs are expected by early May, with full operations likely within three months, around mid-June. About 150 staff still need to be hired and trained before the tunnel, which will shortened the 7.5 km stretch from Balambu to Sisne Khola to 5 km, opens to traffic.

Read more: myRepublica (JICA objection), The Kathmandu Post (details)

Governance by Queue

Nepal's new ministers are finding that running the government means they need to meet with people before they even get to their desks. The Rastriya Swatantra Party assigned teams to each of its 22 ministries for "policy support and oversight," keeping ministers in all-day briefings. Gen Z activist groups are apparently showing up in packs of 30 demanding immediate accountability. A joint secretary at one ministry said ministers are "exhausted" after talking to groups who refuse to leave. The government's solution is reportedly a proposed Gen Z Council to channel youth demands away from ministry waiting rooms.

Read more: Ratopati (Gen Z Council), myRepublica (Thursday session)

Token System Dies, More Reform TBD

The Labour Ministry brought an end to its token system for migrant worker permits on Sunday, making a change to same-day approvals instead. This improvement is part of the reform the Cabinet approved on March 27. Other reforms include getting prospective migrant workers enrolled in the contribution-based social security system, making pre-departure orientation training available online through audio-visual formats, and getting bilateral labor agreements inked with five more countries.

Read more: The Himalayan Times (private sector partnership), The Himalayan Times (March 31 start)

Red Sunday, Green Light for Margin

Every sector fell as NEPSE lost 71 points Sunday, dropping 2.40 percent to close at 2,879.11 on the first trading day of the week. The sell-off came in a week of political frothiness, including the arrest of Oli , money laundering investigations, and, of course, a new government still finding its footing. Finance names were hit hardest, down 3.37 percent. Rs 15 billion ($99 million) changed hands in 196,158 trades. Of 333 companies traded, 255 declined and only 10 turned green on the session. Nepal Stock Exchange changed the margin trading rules on March 27, and will now allow 60 brokers to offer leveraged credit to investors. The Qualified brokers are permitted to lend up to five times a client’s certified net worth, but any single client can use only 10 percent of a broker’s total margin pool. The introduction of margin trading is likely to amplify market volatility.

Read more: The Himalayan Times (Sunday’s session), myRepublica (margin)

Soybeans Drive Birgunj Boom

Exports through Birgunj customs were up almost a fifth year-over-year in the first seven months of fiscal 2026, with processed soybean oil making up more than half the value at Rs 35.58 billion ($235 million). Fruit juice and sunflower oil were the next largest exports through the country's busiest customs point. Imports also rose 11% over the same period.

Read more: The Himalayan Times

Taxman's Share of the Barrel

Nearly half the cost of every barrel of fuel entering Nepal goes to taxes. Customs revenue from fuel imports was Rs 52.15 billion ($344 million) in the first seven months of this fiscal year, a figure that is 42% of the total import bill for fuel. Seems like a lot, and the time might be right for a fuel tax reform.

Read more: myRepublica (breakdown), myRepublica (collection trend)

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Nepal Weekly - 2026-03-25

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 07:07:17 GMT

Nepal business, finance and trade news, every Wednesday.

Photo by Prateek Katyal on Unsplash

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From Rap Bars to Rebar

Balendra Shah, the 35-year-old former rapper who once soundtracked Kathmandu's streets, takes the oath as the country's youngest prime minister on 27th March. His Rastriya Swatantra Party swept 182 of 275 parliamentary seats in the March 5 election, six months after Gen Z protests brought down K.P. Sharma Oli's government over a social media ban that sparked outrage across the country. Shah defeated Oli in the veteran's home turf of Jhapa-5, winning by nearly 50,000 votes. It's a remarkable rise for a structural engineer turned mayor turned national leader, carried by a wave of youth anger over corruption and a political class that kept recycling the same septuagenarians through the PM's office. The harder part starts now. Shah inherits an economy that heavily reliant on remittances with youth unemployment pushing millions abroad. He has promised visible anti-corruption measures, but whether the administrator who cleared Kathmandu's streets can navigate national politics remains very much an open question.

Read more: The Week (youth MP stats), The Himalayan Times (oath timeline), CIVICUS Lens (protest background), Gulf News (election results), Deccan Herald (geopolitical implications)

New Broom's Old Baggage Lands in Court

The Supreme Court of Nepal is hearing a challenge to the Attorney General's decision to drop organized crime and money laundering charges against RSP chair Rabi Lamichhane, who faces fraud allegations tied to 1.51 billion rupees (about $10 million) allegedly taken from cooperatives. Justices Binod Sharma and Abdul Aziz Musalman will resume the hearing on Thursday after advocates filed writs against Attorney General Sabita Bhandari Baral's January decision to withdraw the charges. The case has already shifted twice. Baral first amended only Lamichhane's charge sheet, then extended the amnesty to all co-defendants two days later. Lamichhane, who is out on 6.5 million rupees ($43,000) bail, no longer has to appear monthly at Kaski District Court. The timing is awkward for a party on the verge of leading the incoming government.

Read more: Khabarhub (justices named), Ratopati (bail details), myRepublica (charge sheet amendment)

Baking Soda and Helicopter Bills

Prosecutors charged 32 people on Sunday in a scheme which trekking agencies, helicopter operators, and hospitals allegedly poisoned tourists with baking soda to fake altitude sickness, then billed insurers $19.69 million for phantom evacuations. Guides reportedly laced food to make trekkers violently ill, forced them onto helicopters, then forged medical and flight documents to split the insurance payouts with cooperating hospitals. But the alleged mastermind, Rajendra Bahadur Singh of Mountain Helicopter, was not charged. The District Attorney's Office said there was "no evidence" linking him to the crimes, even though police had identified him as the ringleader. The investigation report sat at the Attorney's Office for a week amid what critics describe as external pressure. Major international insurers including Travellers Assists have already stopped selling policies for Nepal.

Read more: OCCRP (dollar amounts), Ratopati (mastermind not charged), myRepublica (six-year history)

India and China Reopen a Pass Nepal Says Is Theirs

India and China are moving to restart border trade through the Lipulekh Pass this year after a six-year break, and Kathmandu isn't happy about it. The pass sits in territory Nepal claims as its own, a dispute that was formalized when K.P. Oli's government released new political map in 2020 and later amended the constitution to include Limpiyadhura, Lipulekh, and Kalapani. Indian officials in Uttarakhand say preparations are underway for the annual June-to-September trading season, following clearance from New Delhi. RSP has strongly condemned the India-China move last year, calling Lipulekh sovereign Nepali territory under the 1816 Sugauli Treaty. The pass remains under Indian control, and the incoming government will have to figure out how to square its campaign rhetoric with diplomatic reality.

Read more: myRepublica (RSP diplomatic pressure), The Kathmandu Post (district official confirmation)

Iran War Cooks the Economy

Middle East tensions are hitting Nepal through four channels at once - fuel shortages, stranded migrant workers, disrupted tourism flights, and rising cooking gas prices. The most visible shift is happening in kitchens. Importers brought in nearly 148,000 electric stoves in the first eight months of this fiscal year, a jump of more than 50%, as consumers scramble to replace scarce LPG. The government is considering an odd-even vehicle rationing system to cut fuel consumption, though no decision has been made. Crude oil is hovering at $102 a barrel. Hotels and restaurants are feeling the squeeze the most, burning through roughly a third of the country's 45,000-tonne monthly LPG demand. The Hotel Association is pushing for concessional electricity rates of around Rs 6-7 per unit ($0.04-0.05) down from the current Rs 15 ($0.10).

Read more: Nikkei Asia (stranded workers), Desh Sanchar (import figures), Spotlight Nepal (rationing plan), The Kathmandu Post (hotel sector)

Kathmandu's Bourse Bets Big on Balen

The stock exchange rose almost 80 points, about 2.8%, over two sessions last week as investors piled back in after the election. The rally follows after a brutal stretch for government coffers. Capital gains tax collections fell by almost half to Rs 6.44 billion ($43 million) over the first eight months of this fiscal year, with trading volumes down nearly 30% as political uncertainty kept money on the sidelines. Microfinance stocks led the post-election bounce with a 4.2% gain, and turnover hit Rs 23.59 billion ($157 million) in Sunday's session alone. The market is betting on Balen, but capital gains tax is still running at about half of last year's total. there is a Lot of ground to recover.

Read more: The Himalayan Times (Sunday session), The Annapurna Express (Tuesday close), myRepublica (tax figures)

Graduating to Harder Terms

Exiting Least Developed Country status could cost 132,000 jobs and $1 billion in lost trade preferences. The strain is already showing at the Nepalgunj Customs Office, a key crossing point with India which has collected just 52% of its Rs 24.54 billion ($163 million) revenue target by mid-March. That leaves nearly half the target to be met in just the final four months of the fiscal year. Revenue has fallen short of its monthly target every single month, ranging between 69% and 88% of what was expected. The Integrated Check Post at Jamunaha was expected to ease this situation by boosting cross-border trade, but it hasn’t delivered the desired result. The previous fiscal year ended at just 75% of target, and the year before that at 63%.

Read more: myRepublica (monthly revenue)

The Grand Old Party Won't Let Its Leader Quit

Nepali Congress rejected president Gagan Kumar Thapa's resignation on Sunday after the party won only 38 seats in the March 5 election, its weakest performance in history. Thapa, who had taken over at a special convention in January and lost his own Sarlahi seat, stepped down on moral grounds on Thursday. However, the central working committee unanimously decide to retain him, pointing instead to "structural problems and uncontrollable external factors" rather than leadership failure. The committee also prepared a 27-point review that highlighted issues ranging from deep internal factionalism to what it described as "algorithmic influences in the digital age." One of the most striking finding suggested that some NC members practiced "silent killing" by choosing not to campaign for party candidates. Meanwhile, the Deuba faction, which has left out of the new central committee, has decided to continue its own parallel activities within the party.

Read more: myRepublica (13-page report), The Rising Nepal (rejection), The Kathmandu Post (Deuba faction)

First Trans Lawmaker Takes Her Seat

Bhumika Shrestha, 37, has made history as the country's first transgender lawmaker after RSP appointed her to a proportional representation seat in the 275-member House of Representatives. The Kathmandu based activist told AFP she feels "very excited but also the responsibility on my shoulders," and said she hopes to work toward strengthening constitutional protections for gender and sexual minorities.

Read more: DW, MSN (activism background)

Asia's Water Tower Is Melting Twice as Fast

Himalayan glaciers are losing 73 centimeters of ice each year, nearly double the 34 centimeters before 2000, according to two studies released Saturday by ICIMOD. In the Hindu Kush region, glaciers have lost as 27 meters of thickness since 1975, and around 12% of their area has disappear between 1990 and 2020. These glaciers are crucial water source, feeding at least 10 major Asian river systems that supports roughly two billion people. However, about a third of the remaining ice lies in areas that are especially vulnerable to rapid warming, raising concerns about the pace of future loss.

Read more: myRepublica (black carbon emissions), The Kathmandu Post (glacial lake floods)

Big Brands Queue at a Slow IP Court

The Department of Industry issued notices on Wednesday to 11 companies accused of copying trademark of global brands like Coca-Cola, Hugo Boss, Trek Bicycles, and New Zealand's Kathmandu Limited. The cases includes a snack company Chitwan accused of copying a Turner Entertainment logo, and a fashion business in Jhapa selling "Bass"-branded products that Hugo Boss says are too similar to its own. These are just small part of a large number of cases. Some complains from Coca-Cola's have been pending for years. The director general handles both administrative work and legal cases, and the backlog continues to grow.

Read more: The Kathmandu Post

Immigration Drops the Buddy System for Treks

Solo trekkers can now visit restricted Himalayan areas like Upper Mustang and Nar-Phu, as long as they hire a licensed guide through a registered agency. The Department of Immigration has removed the old rule that required at least two-person, after tourism operators said it often forced travellers to be paired with strangers. The new rules also limits each guides to a maximum of seven clients.

Read more: myRepublica (visitor stats), India Times (digital permit system)

Apples to Apples, the Border Doesn't Hold

Indian border forces seized 3,515 kg of Chinese apples and two Mahindra pickups at the Hanumannagar crossing. This shows a larger smuggling problems, with goods worth millions of rupees (tens of thousands of dollars) moving daily through nine border points in Sarlahi district. Locals says smuggling is busiest at night and early morning, when goods move freely between Sangrampur, Narayanpur, Malangwa, and six other crossings that seem to operate with flexible hours. The seizure was carried out by the Indian authorities, not the Nepali officials.

Read more: Ratopati

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Disclaimer

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 06:59:47 GMT

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Information is presented on a best-effort basis, and while we strive for accuracy and integrity in all that we do, errors may be made from time to time. Please review our correction policy for further information.

Updated: 20260306

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Fri, 06 Mar 2026 06:59:46 GMT

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Updated 20260306

Nepal Weekly

Nepal Weekly - 2026-07-22

Nepal business, finance and trade news, every Wednesday.

PM Scraps Tax via Facebook

Nepal Posts Steepest Peace Score Drop

Case Clearance Falls as Courts Rebuild from Arson

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Court Punts Ncell Deal to Regulator

Usury Becomes a Serious Economic Crime

Foreign Tuition Blows Out Service Trade Balance

Rapeseed Rides Reopened Rail to Biratnagar

Lumbini's Hotel Boom Waits for a Runway

Japan's Tunnel Opens But China's Road Stalls

Monsoon Leaves Seven Highways Shut

Electricity Dept Gives Survey Permits for 3,211 MW

Nepal Weekly - 2026-07-15

Nepal business, finance and trade news, every Wednesday.

Self-Immolation Sparks Crisis

Supreme Court Strikes Down Ad Order

Floods Shut Rasuwagadhi, Cut Off Three Districts

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Deficit Blown Out

NEPSE Sheds $592 Million in a Week

Loan-Shark Victims March as Warrants Wait

Idle Hydro Licensees Put on Notice

Gandaki Legalizes Cannabis Farming

Study-Abroad Agents Need Cash Deposit

CIB Nabs Resort Chairman

India-Nepal Energy Talks Without Progress

Nepal Weekly - 2026-07-08

Nepal business, finance and trade news, every Wednesday.

Court Convicts Two in Fake Refugee Scam

NRB Holds Rates and Orders More Lending

Government Claims 87% Progress as NEPSE Slides

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Ex-NTA Chair Jha Convicted, Basnet Walks

Draft Water Bill Sets 15% River Minimum

Pokhara Airport Lands Its First International Route

ADB Lends $165 Million for Pipes and Paperwork

Rasuwagadhi Back Online at Two-Thirds Power

Monsoon Floods Cut Karnali Supply Routes

Nepal Weekly - 2026-07-01

Nepal business, finance and trade news, every Wednesday.

Half a Million Passports Have Nowhere to Go

Food Paste for the Taking

Takes the Bells It Didn't Ring For

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FIFA Gives Nepal a Red Card

Delhi Finds the Wires Full

Tokyo Dreams Lead to Tokyo Graves

Wagle Pulls the Plug on the Power Tax

Eight Days to Spend a Mountain

One Percent, One Bad Day

Monsoon, Bird Flu, and Dead Pigs Arrive on Schedule

The Party of Fresh Starts Can't Start on Time

Airbell's Bill Comes Due

Editor Gets Four Months for Crossing the Colonels

Nepal Weekly - 2026-06-24

Nepal business, finance and trade news, every Wednesday.

Opposition Figures Get Graft Heat Beat

Nobody Agrees on the Lines

Rulebook Catch-up

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Bird Flu Books a Cage at the Zoo

Harvest Won’t Wait

Central Bank Wants to See Your Receipts

Trade Gap Growing

Cardamom Carries the Export Ledger

Commerce Plans Get Tax Tweaks

Rangers Above the Death Zone

The Bulldozers Finally Arrived

The App That Couldn't

Nepal Weekly - 2026-06-17

Nepal business, finance and trade news, every Wednesday.

Three Courts Chase Billions

Record Budget Finds an Empty Bench

Wang Yi Has Notes on Nepal's American Friends

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Missing Millions Land Ex-CAAN Chief in Jail

India's Quality Test Strands Nepal's Harvest