KATHMANDU: Prime Minister Balen Shah has brought the National Investigation Department under the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers, a move that has drawn comparisons with the centralization policies adopted by former Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli during the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) government.
Under the Nepal Government (Work Division) Regulation approved on Wednesday, the intelligence agency has been shifted from the Ministry of Home Affairs to the Prime Minister’s Office.
The decision comes amid lobbying efforts to retain the country’s only intelligence agency under the Prime Minister’s direct supervision rather than returning it to the Home Ministry.
Observers say the move resembles the approach taken by Oli after the 2017 elections, when the then-unified Nepal Communist Party secured a near two-thirds majority government.
At the time, Oli had brought the National Investigation Department, the Department of Money Laundering Investigation and the Revenue Investigation Department under the Prime Minister’s Office, a move widely criticized as an attempt to centralize power.
The interim government led by former Chief Justice Sushila Karki had later returned those agencies to their respective ministries, including the Home and Finance Ministries.
However, Prime Minister Shah has once again shifted the intelligence agency to the Prime Minister’s Office under a revised administrative division framework.
The government has also dissolved the Revenue Investigation Department, one of the three agencies previously brought under the PMO during Oli’s tenure.
Political observers say Shah’s latest move signals a growing concentration of authority within the Prime Minister’s Office, echoing governance patterns seen during the former NCP administration.
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