Kathmandu. The government has started distributing government documents to the doorsteps of the people through the postal service with the objective of delivering public services to the doorsteps. So far, this service has come into operation in 19 districts.

Under the 100-day agenda on governance reforms approved by the government on March 26, the postal service was targeted to be modernized and developed as a government courier service. Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Dr Bikram Timilsina, has been continuously coordinating and holding discussions with the concerned agencies regarding the progress of works and the problems surfaced for the implementation of the plan.

Apart from the Ministry of Communications, the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers, the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and their subordinate bodies are also actively working. Director General of the Department of Postal Services, Manmaya Bhattarai Pangeni, said that 3,131 passports have been transported to the respective districts after the programme started. Of them, 667 passports have already been distributed at the doorsteps of the service recipients. This has eliminated the compulsion for citizens to visit the district administration office to get a passport.

According to the department, agreement has been signed for the service in 19 districts including Kathmandu, Gulmi, Dadeldhura, Jhapa, Sindhupalchowk, Kalikot, Makawanpur, Bajhang, Kaski, Morang, Dhankuta and Baitadi. The process of expansion has been initiated in other districts as well. Currently, all the district administration offices have started collecting the addresses of the service recipients by applying for passports, which will make the distribution more systematic in the future.

Along with passports, other government documents are also being delivered at home. So far, 260 educational certificates have been distributed. As of 3:00 pm on Tuesday, 2,96,545 driving licenses have been sent to their respective transport offices and the service of delivering the licenses at their doorsteps has been started in Morang, Kaski and other districts.

A total of 14 samples have been supplied to the health sector in collaboration with the National Public Health Laboratory. The service has been started from Surkhet, Banke and Kathmandu. Along with the expansion of services, the works of institutional reforms have also moved forward. Nepal Telecom is preparing to start the service of delivering SIM cards at home soon. According to the Department, the transportation of question papers, answer sheets and certificates has already started with the Mid-Western University while discussions are underway with the Nepal Open University for the transportation of academic certificates.

A study committee has been formed to integrate the system with the Department of Passport towards systemic reforms while efforts are underway to integrate the system with the Office of Financial Comptroller General. Likewise, the Department has forwarded the task of postal code upgrading in the Postal Line Review and Postal Internal Tracking System (PITS) in collaboration with the provincial directorates and district offices.