In March 2026, the Rastriya Swatantra Party came to power, winning 182 out of 275 seats in the House of Representatives. This victory was built on the mandate given by the September 2025 protests, and a central promise of breaking Nepal’s cycle of short-lived coalition governments, elite impunity, and stalled reform. That promise was translated into action within 48 hours of taking office, when the government published a 100-point reform agenda covering administrative restructuring, anti-corruption measures, digital governance, and merit-based civil service reform. Sixty days later, Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle presented the Budget for Fiscal Year 2083/84 BS (FY 2026/27). This budget is Nepal’s largest in history at NPR 2.12 trillion (USD 13.88 billion), with private sector growth and investment climate reform at its center. Together, the agenda and the budget show what the RSP believes a new Nepal can look like.
What the Government Completed in 60 Days
Within two months of assuming office, the government produced a measurable record across administrative reform, anti-corruption, and digital governance. It reduced federal ministries from 22 to 18, fulfilling a key 100-point commitment to improve government service delivery and make the bureaucracy efficient. The Office of the Prime Minister published Nepal’s first Business Process Re-engineering Implementation Guidelines, improving service delivery with the aim of making it cost-efficient, more accessible, and free of service-duplication. The Investment Board Nepal launched a one-stop service portal, integrating 14 government agencies into a single platform for investors from proposal submission through approvals. The service portal reform is significant as it signals the government’s motive of improving investment and business climate in Nepal through easier registration process, streamlined information channels, and faster service delivery. Similarly, over 1,200 political appointees were removed from state-owned enterprises, universities, regulatory bodies, and media institutions through an executive ordinance. The removals signal a break from the patronage networks that previous governments depended on for political survival. An Asset Probe Commission was also constituted and issued a 30-day asset disclosure directive to senior officials on May 14. For the first time, senior public officials face a formal, time-bound mechanism for financial transparency
These early deliveries are structural in form but largely procedural in substance. Ministry consolidation reduces numbers at the top without restructuring mandates or budgets below. Removing over 1,200 appointees asserts depoliticization without yet establishing merit-based replacements. The first 60 days built the architecture for reforms. What follows will determine whether the government can occupy it. Regardless of the caveat, these reforms indicate the government’s will to realize their agendas with pace.
What Stalled
However, not everything went as planned. Most of the reforms promised in the agenda are still ongoing or haven’t started. Plans like the Hello Sarkar (1111) grievance system upgrade remained publicly unconfirmed. Without a functioning channel like Hello Sarkar, citizens have no formal mechanism to report their grievances. Another major pledge, a formal commitment to institutional reforms for Dalit communities, was addressed verbally in parliament but without a traceable government notification within the committed 15-day deadline. The absence of a formal notification means the commitment carries no legal weight and no enforcement mechanism. Likewise, the Nagarik app was expanded to include birth and marriage registration data in April, but government offices continued demanding paper documents rather than accepting digital credentials. The gap between the app’s technical rollout and its bureaucratic adoption reveals that digital reform without compliance enforcement changes the interface but not the system.
The stalled items share a pattern. They are the reforms that carry the highest political cost or require the deepest institutional capacity. Dalit commitments require redistributive decisions. Digital governance reforms require bureaucratic compliance that directives alone have not produced. The government moved fast on structural announcements and slowed on commitments that demand accountability to specific constituencies.
Controversies
Just one day after the then Home Minister Sudan Gurung assumed office, he ordered high-profile arrests of former Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and former Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak following the Karki Commission findings on the September events. The Supreme Court issued an order on April 9 for their release on the condition that they would be present before the authorities when required. Gurung’s time in office saw numerous high-profile arrests of politicians and businessmen, which subsequently led to his own resignation after finding himself implicated in a money-laundering investigation. This was the second RSP minister to exit within a month. A government-appointed inquiry panel submitted its findings on June 6, clearing the former minister of the allegations that had prompted his resignation. Across all the cases mentioned above, the government moved faster than the cases could sustain. Arrests were made before the institutional groundwork; evidence and legal framework were in place to support them.
The RSP government also faced constitutional contention over its use of executive ordinances to bypass parliament. Within five weeks of assuming office, the government pushed changes through at least eight ordinances, restructuring 16 universities and voiding over 1,200 political appointments. The government justified this move on grounds of speed; noting parliamentary passage would take three to four months to turn the actions into laws. However, critics pointed out that the Cabinet had used a loophole to bypass parliamentary channels to issue the ordinances. The ordinance approach delivered reform at speed but built on a parliamentary basis the RSP does not control. The government holds a majority in the lower house, but no seat in the National Assembly. Speed and legitimacy are not always in conflict. But when they are, the costs tend to accumulate slowly and arrive suddenly. Though the ordinance approach delivered reform quickly, its legality is still being tested.
Similarly, the government came under scrutiny following its eviction drive, which affected approximately 2,000 out of an estimated 3,466 informal settler families along valley riverbanks. Though local governments were delegated the tasks of handling the evicted settlers, there isn’t a legal provision that allows them to distribute land without approval of the National Land Commission. This move has met heavy criticism for not following due process, breaking election campaign promises, and lack of proper planning for relocation. The quick demolition illustrates what happens when enforcement outpaces planning. Though there were commissions in the past to solve the same issue of landlessness, none have been successful in doing so. Beyond the humanitarian dimension, there is a political one. Some of those displaced had been directly involved in the September 2025 protests that brought the RSP to power, but the government failed to fulfil its election campaign promises to the same voters who brought them into power.
A forward-looking budget
Despite the controversies, the recent budget for FY 2083/84 BS (2026/27 AD) unveiled by Finance Minister Wagle is a forward-looking one. Also, the largest budget to date, it targets 7 percent GDP growth and explicitly prioritizes a private sector-friendly investment environment. Its provisions connect directly to the infrastructure built in the first 60 days: an “Investment Express” one-stop system is to be operationalized within three months, projects approved by the Investment Board will no longer need separate approvals from other government bodies, and legal frameworks for commercial dispute resolution will be developed. Prior budgets have been plagued with poor execution; for instance, capital budget execution stood at only 12.1 percent in the first half of the current fiscal year. The new budget has been considered one of the most ambitious budgets to date. Whether absorption capacity improves enough to match the budget, ambition is the test the next fiscal year will deliver.
The RSP government with a parliamentary majority and having the people’s mandate is uniquely positioned to bring long-term changes through their reform plans and policies, and progressive budget. However, the government stands at a crossroads, whether it embraces actions and reforms that have the pace but lack the structural support or move for more structural based reform that deliver results gradually, but have the base. The 60-day record shows a government that can move fast. The question is whether that speed is building toward something that lasts.
NEFport Issue 65’s special sections offers a fuller accounting across three dimensions: the RSP’s manifesto and what it committed to, a 60-day assessment of what was delivered, stalled, and contested, and an analysis of the FY2083/84 budget’s provisions and their relationship to the 100-point reform agenda.
Prasidha Sangat is a NEF Fellow at Nepal Economic Forum. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Development Studies from Kathmandu University. Prior to joining NEF he worked as a Research and MEL Associate, from which he gained experience in the development sector, education intervention, and digital governance reforms while honing his research and analysis skills.
