In Nepal’s 85,520-strong civil service, 24,000 are women

December 28, 2024

Prakriti Dahal
In the 1990s, public service vacancies were announced, but there were hardly any applicants. There were advertisements for positions available specifically for women, but qualified women were not applying. According to former secretary and Public Service Commission member Brinda Hada, in 2000, she was the only female joint-secretary. “Women had not yet reached decision-making positions,” she said.
Back then, the educational status of women had not improved visibly, and there was not much aspiration among women to fight for government jobs. Even qualified women were not applying. However, the situation has changed over the past 15 years. Now, even for one position, there are hundreds of women applying and competing. Hada credits the increase in the number of women in the civil service with the introduction of quotas for women, as well as other groups, after the political changes of 2006.
Recently, as the attraction of women towards the civil service has grown, the number of women in key positions like chief secretary, secretary, and joint-secretary is also rising. Hada attributes this growth in women at the policy-making level to their inclusive representation. “After the implementation of inclusivity, women have started entering government services. Women have realised that inclusivity is provisioned for them, and as more women continue to join, their participation at the decision-making level will increase,” she said.
When former chief secretary Liladevi Gadtaula entered the civil service as a law officer nearly three decades ago, there were only two women in her group. According to her, at that time, only about 7 percent of the civil service workforce was women. “Back then, the dominant narrative was that public service was only for men, and there were misconceptions that women are incapable of studying. As a result, public service was seen as an insurmountable challenge for many women.”
Progress in senior ranks
Currently, women are making significant strides in senior positions within the civil service, judiciary, and health services. Having entered the service through open or inclusive categories, women have shown their competitive edge and capabilities.
According to a two-year-old report of the Civil Servants Records, there are 7 women in the special grade, 58 women serving as joint-secretaries, and 364 women under-secretaries.
Liladevi Gadtaula retired as the chief secretary weeks ago. Other notable women in secretary positions included Sarita Duwadi in the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, Sewa Lamsal in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pramila Devi Shakya Bajracharya in the Ministry of Water Supply, Radhika Aryal in the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, Bindu Bista as the deputy auditor general, and Laxmi Kumari Basnet as the principal secretary of Gandaki Province. At the time of preparing this report, there were 44 female judges serving in the Supreme Court, High Courts, and District Courts.
According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, 8 out of 77 districts have women chief district officers (CDOs). The district administrators were Devi Pandey Khatri (Solukhumbu), Anita Adhikari (Ramechhap), Kalpana Shrestha (Ilam), Meena Aryal (Tehrathum), Roshni Kumari Shrestha (Bhaktapur), Rudra Devi Sharma (Bardiya), Sunita Nepal (Syangja), and Sakeem Shrestha (West Nawalparasi).
Brinda Hada adds that the increase in women’s representation in the civil service is not only due to inclusivity but also government initiatives. During her tenure as the secretary at the women’s ministry, free exam preparation classes were provided for women. “While the numerical representation of women has gone up, creating an environment for women to work effectively at decision-making levels remains a critical need today.”
Staff records confirm the growing representation of women in the civil service. According to the report for the fiscal year 2022-23, among the 85,520 civil service workers, 24,094 were women, making up 28.17 percent of the total workforce.
Ten years ago, women’s representation was 15.97 percent, which jumped by 12.26 percent in the past decade.
According to Geeta Kumari Humagain, spokesperson for the Public Service Commission, while women used to compete primarily in the inclusive category, they have recently started being selected through the open category as well. As a result, women are now competing both in the open and inclusive categories, leading to an increase in their percentage. “This is one reason why the percentage of men appears to have slightly decreased,” she said.
Humagain noted that the introduction of inclusive recruitment has attracted more women to the government service sector.
Among the positions announced for recruitment, 45 percent are reserved for proportional representation. Based on this whole, 33 percent of the seats are filled with women, 27 percent with indigenous nationalities, 22 percent with Madhesis, 9 percent with Dalits, 5 percent with persons with disabilities while 4 percent of the quotas go to residents of geographically backward regions. This allotment applies to federal government services, security agencies, and public institutions. According to the Public Service Commission, in the 13 years since 2007, among the 24,152 candidates recommended for inclusive appointment, 8,259 were women.
Despite women reaching decision-making levels in the civil service, political and social activist Sirjana Kafle argues that there is no room for complacency. She believes that the main challenge is not just counting the number of women representatives but making that representation productive and moving towards further empowerment of the less advantaged groups.
“What mechanism will advance the inclusivity provision enshrined in the constitution is the crucial issue,” Kafle says. She argues that the inclusivity principle, developed with certain intentions, has not been able to ensure the desired level of representation. “The representation that should be there for marginalised communities, underprivileged groups, and remote areas hasn’t been fully realised,” she adds.
Former secretary Damodar Regmi, however, views the growing representation of women and other groups in state institutions as a positive development. “We need to look beyond just percentages and numbers and consider the past social structure,” he explains. “Looking at the current situation, there is an increasing trend of women being entrusted with responsibilities at the local level, in ministry departments, and even as secretaries handling ministries.”
Before the implementation of the inclusiveness principle, Regmi points out, women’s representation was less than 10 percent.
Sirjana Kafle asserts that women who succeed in competitive public service exams are fully capable of handling their responsibilities, and their competence should not be questioned. She argues that women generally excel in integrity compared to their male counterparts and says it’s time to assign women to sector-specific roles.
“We need to prepare women for responsibilities in areas where they have not yet been given the leadership,” Kafle said. “For example, women have yet to be appointed as secretaries in ministries like home affairs, physical infrastructure development, and finance. Addressing this requires policy changes.”
Liladevi Gadtaula made history as the first female chief secretary of Nepal. “The position of chief secretary is obtained only by chance,” she says. “Once you become a joint-secretary, you can aim to become a secretary, but becoming the chief secretary is not guaranteed. It’s not a position one arrives at by rotation; the appointment is a government decision.”

(This report originally published in the Kantipur daily was translated from Nepali with some help from ChatGPT.)