Working in Nepal
Dangel, R. (2005)
‘Admistrative Culture in Nepal: Does It Reflect the Dominant Socio-Cultural values Of Nepal?’
" It is worth presenting a common pattern on how civil servants spend office hours. In Nepal,
office hours run from 9 to 5 within Kathmandu valley (the valley comprises three district Kathmandu, Bhakatapur and Lalitpur) and 10 to 5 in other parts of the country. During winter
offices are closed at 4 p. m. countrywide. Employees usually arrive at office between 9.30 to 10.00 a.m. They have to register their attendance in a daily attendance register. Usually the register is kept in the office chief’s room for gazetted officer to sign out and the personal assistant’s room for other assistant employees. When employees arrive at office, they give their respect saying ‘Namaskar Sir’ while bending down and joining hands together. After giving respect to their superiors, they sign the register and formally start office work for that day.
Gazeetted employees assemble in the office chief’s room. One can find all kinds of daily and weekly newspapers. They start to read newspapers. But other assistant employees do not have that facility and they gather outside the chief’s room and start chatting about national and international politics and other issues. After reading newspapers for one hour, officers start chatting about different issues raised in the newspapers that day. Most debates centre on politics because in Nepal it is a very common issue. Sometimes, officers also discuss about their official work regarding the decision to be taken that day. This assembly is also taken as a good opportunity to familiarize with the chief. If someone is absent in this gathering, he is suspected and questioned; and his absence is commented about by all.
By mid day, they slowly move to their desks. They enter the room and call messengers to bring tea and water. They take tea and water. After that, they check mails on their desks and ask subordinates to proceed with work. Around one o’clock most chairs seem to be vacant because employees have gone outside for personal or official work. Most of them do not come back they proceed home thereafter. Around 2-3 p.m., others who are at office go for lunch though it is not officially prescribed. These days most offices have computers especially on the officer’s desk. It helps them to pass time and pretending to be busy on their work even if most of the time they enjoy playing cards and other games on the computer. By realizing this fact, Government issued a circular to scrap computer games; however, most employees did not implement this. During the winter season, employees prefer the sunny places and pass one to two hours there. In this way they usually do not work more than two or three hour within their eight hours working period.
Besides this, it is also a tradition to get approval before leaving office. Lower level employees visit section chiefs, and section chief and other seniors visit office-chiefs to say ‘namaskar
hajoor, bida paun’ (good bye sir, let me go). In case of local level offices, after closing office, employees follow office chief for a walk up to his residence / destination of the day. It is said this tendency of employees is the legacy of the chakari system. They do this to make their boss happy and develop personal relationship by aiming at getting favor from the boss. 75 This scenario of the Nepalese Civil Service is common in central level organizations such as at the Ministry, Departmental to district level organizations.
This feature is presented on the basis of the observation during my field work and personal experience during the working life as a civil servant. The above discussion clearly shows lack of socialization and internalization with organizational values and norms. This means there is a lack of professionalism. Employees are still motivated by social values even in those work places."
Pictures of Kathmandu:
