Hetauda, Oct 28:  The Bagmati Province government has started preparations to reduce the number of ministries. The government plans to bring down the current 14 ministries to seven.

The main opposition, CPN (Maoist Centre), had recently submitted a memorandum demanding a reduction in the number of ministries. Following that, the ruling Nepali Congress and CPN (UML) reached an agreement on downsizing during a joint meeting of their parliamentary parties.

Chief Minister Indra Bahadur Baniya said, “After a principled agreement among ruling parties, the government has formed a committee to study how many ministries to reduce, which ones to keep or merge, and how to manage staff.”

He added that with political consensus already in place, the process toward a concrete decision has begun. “We are not just focusing on reducing numbers but also on how to manage the ministries effectively,” he said.

According to Baniya, the move is part of administrative reform and fiscal discipline and will be finalized through party consensus.

-People’s News Monitoring Service