Kathmandu, May 15
The National Investigation Department, the country’s sole intelligence agency, has once again been placed under the Prime Minister’s Office.
On Wednesday, the Work Division Regulations were amended to bring the intelligence body back under the Prime Minister’s Office.
When UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli was Prime Minister, he had moved the National Investigation Department from the Home Ministry to the Prime Minister’s Office. However, the government formed under Sushila Karki’s leadership, following the Gen-Z movement, had returned the department to the Home Ministry.
Now, after Balen Shah, the parliamentary party leader of Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), which secured nearly a two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives Elections held on March 5, became Prime Minister, the intelligence agency has once again been brought under the Prime Minister’s Office.
The Good Governance Roadmap 2082, made public by this same government on March 29 (Chaitra 15), had already recommended placing the intelligence agency under the Prime Minister’s Office.
The Good Governance Roadmap, prepared by a committee coordinated by Govinda Bahadur Karki, Secretary at the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers, clearly stated on page 802 that the intelligence body should be placed under the Prime Minister’s Office.
The roadmap states that the department should be given stability by keeping it under the Prime Minister’s Office rather than shifting it from ministry to ministry repeatedly. It further specifies that this move should be completed within three months, after which institutional stability would follow.
A source at the Prime Minister’s Office confirmed that the intelligence agency has now been brought under the Prime Minister’s Office in line with that roadmap.
