One year of communications minister: Focus on policy reforms and good governance promotion

Kathmandu, Jan 18: Minister for Communications and Information Technology Rekha Sharma said she made efforts for legal, policy and structural reforms in the first year of her tenure at the ministry.     

At a press meet organized at the ministry today on the occasion of completing first year of her term, Minister Sharma expressed her strong confidence that Nepal's communications and information technology sector can be restructured through legal and policy reforms.     

The minister informed that the ministry itself has carried out study and investigation on some issues under the zero tolerance policy to implement the pathway of good governance, social justice and prosperity put forth by Prime Minister Pushpa kamal Dahal 'Prachanda'.     

It may be noted that Minister Sharma had assumed the ministerial responsibility on January 17 last year.     

The communications ministry has the scope of work related to mass communications, information technology, postal service, printing, telecommunications and film.     

Minister Sharma, also the government spokesperson, clarified that the government was moving ahead for implementation of the constitution and enabling federalism, economic reforms and revival, investment promotion, employment creation, service delivery reforms, citizen-friendly administration and corruption control with the agenda of good governance, social justice and prosperity.     

The minister informed that the frequency policy-2080 was issued by revising the frequency policy (amendment 2077) to discourage the tendency of occupying the frequency license, ignoring revenue payment and unwilling to function.     

With the policy in place, the net neutrality policy will come to effect since 16 July 2024. The ministry has expected to discourage tendency of paying no or nominal revenue for frequency after obtaining license.     

Likewise, the regulation relating to the management of asset of unlicensed telecommunications service providers was also amended. It will manage assets and automatically return unused radio frequency.     

Meanwhile, the ministry has also amended and enforced the Advertisement Regulations Act-2080 to address grievances on growing leakage and opaqueness in ad industry.     

In order to end the practice of voluntarily charging amount by foreign channels on television broadcasting, the 'A la carte' price system has been brought into action.     

In the meantime, various policies and laws, including directive on managing social networking sites use, 2080 and national cyber security policy, 2080 were approved and are on implementation stage.     

Other necessary policy and law are under formulation process. The security printing related bill and public broadcasting service bill are on discussion in the parliamentary committee while Nepal Media Council related bill has been sent to the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs after taking consent from the ministry of finance.     

The drafts of mass communications bill and social media (management and regulation) bill have been prepared and sent to ministry of finance for consent. Principle agreement has been obtained for formulating the telecommunications bill and information technology related bill to address innovative technology emerging in information technology and telecommunications sector.     

Among other bills under discussion for formulation and revision are related to film sector, national advertisement policy, 2080, national broadcasting regulation, 2080 additional postal regulation, 2074.     

The minister further informed that necessary works have been taken ahead as per the recommendation of the high-level committee.     

Taking into consideration the committee's recommendations, a national cyber security policy was formulated first time this year, she shared.     

Likewise, investigation into the public procurement of the MDMS system was done by forming a probe committee. Minister Sharma highlighted the need of maintaining transparency along with necessary policy and legal arrangements on the system despite its necessity in the country.(RSS)