Kathmandu. The service recipients will no longer have to depend on unauthorized persons to apply or fill up forms in government offices and will not have to pay extra money.

This provision has been made in the ‘Application Format to be Used in Government Offices and its Implementation Guideline, 2083’ brought by the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers to reduce the time, labor and cost of the citizens by making the government services easy and technology-friendly.

According to this guideline, all government agencies at the federal, provincial and local levels have been completely banned from preparing applications, filling up forms, arranging the prescribed necessary documents or providing services in the vicinity of any government office.

It is also stated in the guidelines that a service seeker help desk should be set up in every government office to provide free assistance in case the service recipients are unable to fill up the form themselves or are unable to understand the required documents.

Likewise, no employee of the office shall be allowed to recommend, direct, or compel any service recipient to contact or receive the service from any certain person, institution or service provider, except in accordance with law. It also requires the concerned office to adopt necessary managerial and security measures to discourage unauthorized mediation within or around the office premises.

Similarly, the service recipients will not have to pay any fee for the forms of application required to get service from the government office. The government offices have to provide the prescribed format of a certain number of applications to the service recipients free of cost and if there is a large number of demands, the prescribed fees may be levied to prevent misuse.

In addition to this, the self-help service will also be arranged in which the service recipients can download, fill out, print or apply online using the computer or digital kiosk placed in the office.

It has been emphasized that all the offices should download their application forms in the form of website, QR code and electronic form and submit their applications online.

It is believed that this step of the government will discourage unauthorized people who have been exerting influence outside government offices for years and citizens will be able to apply and fill up the form without any hassle and extra expenses.