The Bagmati Province Government has instructed secretaries of its ministries not to use budget spending alone as the measure of progress, according to reports published on October 14, 2026. The directive signals a shift away from judging performance solely by expenditure figures, although the reports provided no further details on the criteria officials are expected to use alongside spending.
A broader measure of performance
The instruction asks ministry secretaries to look beyond how much of their allocated budgets has been spent when considering progress. It challenges an approach in which expenditure figures are treated as the main or only indication of how government work is advancing.
Budget spending can show the extent to which allocated funds have been used. But the directive, as reported, distinguishes that financial measure from progress more broadly. It indicates that expenditure alone should not settle whether a ministry’s work is moving forward.
The available reports do not specify what additional measures the provincial government wants ministries to consider. They also do not describe a new evaluation framework, a timetable for applying the instruction, or any reporting requirements for secretaries. The reported direction is therefore clear in its central point - spending figures should not stand on their own - while the practical method for assessing progress remains unspecified in the information available.
What the directive does and does not establish
The instruction was directed to secretaries of Bagmati Province’s ministries. It does not, based on the details reported, set out a new spending target or state that budget expenditure should be ignored. Rather, it signals that spending is not to be treated as a sufficient measure of progress by itself.
That distinction matters to how the directive should be understood. The reports describe a change in emphasis in performance assessment, not the replacement of financial tracking with a named alternative. They do not identify particular projects, ministries, programmes or results that will be reviewed under the instruction.
Nor do the reports provide a stated reason from the provincial government for issuing the direction. No quoted explanation, assessment of ministry performance, or account of the decision-making process was included in the summary of the reports. Without those details, it is not possible to say whether the instruction responds to a specific concern or forms part of a wider administrative initiative.
Implementation details remain unclear
The directive places the secretaries in the position of considering progress through a broader lens than budget use alone. However, the available information does not explain how that approach will be applied in practice, how progress will be documented, or how any additional measures will be compared across ministries.
It is also unclear whether the government intends to issue further guidance. The reports do not say whether secretaries will receive a formal set of indicators, whether ministries will need to revise existing reports, or whether the province plans to review performance through a new process. Those details would determine how the instruction translates into day-to-day assessment, but they were not included in the information provided.
The central message remains that expenditure figures should not be the sole basis for judging progress in Bagmati Province’s ministries. By directing secretaries to move beyond that single measure, the provincial government has signalled a broader approach to evaluating performance. The scope, standards and practical effects of that approach, however, have not yet been described in the reports published on October 14, 2026.
