Nepal's digital services falter amid system failures

Long queues formed outside the Land Reform and Land Revenue Office in Bhaktapur last Thursday, with citizens clutching essential documents for land and citizenship services. Their urgency contrasted sharply with the stalled operations inside, where the system repeatedly failed.

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The system isn’t working.

Frustrated visitors were repeatedly told "The system isn't working." Many waited in vain, hoping for a resolution that never came. Ramesh Parajuli, attempting to finalize a land purchase, described spending an entire day at the office after a previous attempt was thwarted by technical issues. "Even when the server briefly came online for about two hours, nothing got done," he said, adding that staff eventually sent everyone home.

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I stayed until the office closed. The courtyard was packed with people waiting for service. Even when the server briefly came online for about two hours, nothing got done. Staff eventually told everyone to come back on Monday because there would be no work on Friday due to technical issues.

Similar disruptions plagued offices in Kathmandu, where Advocate Sharmila Parajuli spent four consecutive days trying to update a client's land records. Officials cited various reasons for the delays, including power outages and server failures. "My time has been wasted, and I still don't know when it will be completed," she lamented, questioning the government's "Digital Nepal" ambitions amidst such persistent technical problems.

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I spent four straight days coming here and still couldn’t get the work done. My time has been wasted, and I still don’t know when it will be completed. How can the government claim it is building a Digital Nepal when the internet doesn’t work, servers keep failing, power cuts interrupt services, and even a simple task takes four days?

The Department of Land Management and Archives acknowledged the issues, stating that technical problems affected the 'public access module.' This outage impacted online request systems used by paralegal assistants and banks, disrupting crucial services. Harisharan Thapa, a computer officer at the department, explained that the problem stemmed from the public-facing platform, exacerbated by the heavy workload at the end of the fiscal year. "A system never has just one issue. When one problem is fixed, another appears," he noted, emphasizing the need for continuous improvement and monitoring.

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The heavy end of the fiscal year workload is believed to have caused the problem. A system never has just one issue. When one problem is fixed, another appears. We have to keep improving and monitoring it because technical probl