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In some of the NCEF areas, volunteers, students, and parents get together every month to discuss progress of the students, showcase students’ talents and achievements, and resolve challenges faced in daily operation of the organization. In this month’s newsletter, we want to bring to you some pictures from a similar gathering in Nepalgunj. Our Nepalgjung area coordinator, Apsara Khanal, has sent us some pictures from two monthly meetings, one organized at a volunteer’s house, and other organized at the Mahendra Park. A group of thirty-five students, parents and volunteers participated in the meeting at the park where students got to see each other, share their experiences, and enjoy the park. Such outings are covered from the discretionary budget provided to the area coordinators that they can use for enriching students’ experience as NCEF scholarship recipient.
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An unsatisfactory budget, unforgiving landscape and unsteady government. As if Nepal did not already have enough hardships, there is yet another serious issue that Nepal must address. A news article in Kavre Times, a local Nepali newspaper, recently outlined major problem that has been hindering the functioning of social service organizations in Nepal - its inefficient and unreliable postal system.
According to the article, a letter mailed March 26 to the office of NCEF’s partner NGO, Campaign for  Education (CE) in Kathmandu had not been delivered even after two months had passed. Sent from Banepa, which is only about 12 miles out of Kathmandu, the letter contained important documents concerning NCEF scholarship applications. The scholarship applications were supposed to be forwarded to NCEF, after they had been processed, but due to mailing delays, the review of applications form had to be postponed.
Scholarship applications are received from almost all parts of the country, including Nepalgunj, Kavre, Palpa, Kathmandu and Patan. For every new student to be selected for the scholarship scheme, the designated regions are required to send at least 2 to 3 applicants by March - the application deadline. In general, the area either sends almost all the applications on time or none at all. Last year, all partnership districts had renewal/continuing students. This year, however, applications were collected from Patan and Nepalgunj only. Most of these applications were received from Nepalgunj since NCEF had decided to increase the number of students there because of the stable and effective system established in the area. These applications are usually post-mailed from remote areas, where internet scanning is unavailable, to the branch office in Kathmandu. The information is then relayed to the selection committee . But, due to the delays of the postal services, the entire selection process of the candidates is being seriously hampered- adding to the woes of the selection team, which works under an extremely rigid schedule.
Problems due to the unreliable postal service is a common story in Nepal. Recently, the Nepali Times wrote about the frustrations of Nilima, a gender expert with an INGO, due to Nepal’s postal service. She was expecting an invitation letter for her participation in an important workshop in Japan. The invitation, which was sent, never arrived. The inefficiency of the post office had cost her an important once-in-a-life-time opportunity. All these events have tarnished the image of postal services in Nepal.
Nepal’s postal network, as it is intended, is remarkable in the sense that it encompasses one general post office, four regional offices, 70 district offices, 807 area post offices and 3,130 extra departmental post offices to provide postal services to every part of the country. Besides the district and regional post offices, according to the Nepali Times, 444 area post offices and the GPO provide financial money services like money order services and postal savings bank services. However, while every area of Nepal is covered and services exist, services are extremely inefficient and unreliable. Occurrences of un- and mis-delivered letters are frequent. The state-run postal system has been facing quite a solid competition from more efficient services and the Internet. It seems as though, Nepal Department of Postal Services just does not have enough resources and manpower to deal with the influx of post mails.
Although, post service officials agree that problems with the postal system “might happen”, they won’t admit their ineffectiveness. “We have been providing invaluable service to the general public, but our services are never recognized. And our small mistakes are exaggerated and overstated,” says Kishor Jung Karki, a senior postal official (Source: Nepali Times). This might be an expected response, but one that is unlikely to convince thousands of customers who consider the postal service to be full of malice and corruption. There are always long lines to get stamps, and it is widely believed that post office employees “re-cycle” stamps while your letter/parcel ends up in the waste bin.
Despite the limitations, the postal service has something to be proud about - the EMS (Express Mail Service)- the courier service started by the GPO in 1997. Since its inception, the service has been a success story due to its low tariffs and reliability. For instance, a 1 kg parcel delivery to USA can cost you only Rs 1,350, using EMS while the same service can cost a staggering amount of nearly Rs 5,000 using DHL or comparable services. In its four years of operation, not one customer has requested compensation from EMS, implying its extensive delivery success and customer satisfaction. But, as EMS services is still limited to only 26 countries, one still has to rely on other commercial courier services to send packages and documents to most destinations like Africa, Western Asia, Europe and the Americas.
Presently, the most daunting task for the postal service is to make its distribution system more efficient. Kathmandu and Lalitpur districts pose the greatest challenge to an efficient distribution system given their burgeoning population density, unplanned residential constructions and unnamed streets. “We cannot improve the distribution system unless city mapping is done properly, but otherwise we are well equipped and have enough human resources to work smoothly,” comments Postal Services Director Rajendra Prasad Sharma. The 12,000 postal service workers on contract with the extra-departmental post offices are the lowest in the postal service hierarchy here, and they receive virtually no incentives to perform their job. They generally have no income source other than their salaries and they may not even get their salaries if the officials at the district post offices decide to not pay them their salaries (Source: Nepali Times).
In order to encourage efficiency of the postal services, seven years ago, the government introduced a new legislation that limited lateral entry from one class of administrative services to another to only 10 percent. Recently an amendment to the Postal Service Act, that provides greater freedom to the postal sector has been drafted. The Act would ensure greater flexibility of resources and maintain competition with the private sector in the future.
Organizations like the NCEF are reliant on timely receipt of applications, monthly reports and editorial matters from students, etc. As such, postal services are key. Viable options of communication like online application system, the provision of a Laptop for every area coordinator, and use of travel networks such as the bus service can be potential solutions in the future. However, these options also come with challenges as electricity is unpredictable and Internet is slow and spotty. Nevertheless, given the importance of effective communication, it is important to consider all mediums of transferring important documents. Given the challenges that come with postal services and the Internet, NCEF needs to adopt a two-prong strategy. First, NCEF should focus on identifying and implementing better options of communication for the future. Second, given inefficient communication, NCEF must construct a system of selecting candidates for scholarships given such constraints (e.g. how to work with late arriving applications). NCEF must figure out how to be effective despite the inefficiencies of the Nepal Department of Post Office.
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