Paper presented to Professor Nobuhiro Hiwatari as a requirement for the course on International Political
Economy (Case Study) at GraSPP, the University of Tokyo.

Analyzing Reservation Policies
in Civil Service of Nepal
Deepak Dhakal
51-128210
Abstract

State belongs to all its citizen. This is why it has to create such a conducive environment
where every kind of citizens' right are secure and they can freely exercise their opportunities.
People feel justice when they get equal access to power, resource and opportunity created by
the state. In order to increase this access, Reservation is one of the tools of social inclusion
which has been recently introduced in Nepal. The main motive behind the policy was toincrease participation and expand capacities of the marginalized communities as well as
women in the civil services. This paper tries to access this reservation policy taken by theGovernment of Nepal and seeks to find how much it has been able to solve the problems of
marginalization.
1. INTRODUCTION:
Nepal is one of the most diverse countries in terms of ethnic, culture, religion and languages.
The recent census of 20111 has categorized 125 caste as well as ethnic communities in
Nepal out of 26.5 million populations. Though Nepali speaking people count 44.6 percent of
the total population, over 92 identified languages are spoken in Nepal and 10 types ofreligion are practiced. 25 percent of the population lives below the poverty line2. Social
exclusion is known to be one of the main problems in this country. The process of exclusion1

www.cbs.gov.np
This poverty mapping was done on the basis of purchasing power for a household on minimum calorie of foodneeded. Nepal Living Standard Survey of 2010-11 did this by constructing food basket of the poverty line by estimating
how much the poor spend to reach a minimum calorie requirement of 2,220 Kcal per day.
2

1

has been identified to be mainly based on Hindu caste system, socio-cultural stratificationand patriarchal system of the society.
There is no single set of indicators of socially excluded groups till now. The poor range overa wide variety of social groups irrespective of caste, religion and geographic regions. Women
cut across all categories irrespective of caste, ethnicity, individuals with disabilities, or
children. Six categories, based on sex, caste, ethnicity, region, religion and physical condition, havebeen listed as excluded groups. (GSEA, 2006)

The problems/issues regarding these excluded groups have been identified as: Poverty,
Marginalization from mainstream development, discrimination, under-representation inpolitics and bureaucracy and lack of competent power. Similarly, Culture, language andreligion are not adequately protected. Most are affected by the conflict, Women have been
always kept out of decision making process and lack share in property and other resources.
Nepal initiated different kind of policies so as to solve the problems of social exclusion. Oneof the prominent steps was abolition of slavery in 1934. Some major initiatives are targeted
to promote equality, participatory development, social security, positive discrimination,
reservation on government employment, local development, targeted program, genderbudgeting and end of discrimination. In order to increase participation in civil service,
government introduced reservation system, with second amendment of Civil Service Act, forwomen, Ethnic groups, Madhesi, Dalit, Disabled, and the people belonging to remote areas.
Despite all these efforts, the impact has not been realized significantly. Nepal is one of the
top ten achiever in Human Development Index3. However the gap between 'haves' and 'havesnot' seems widening (NLSS, 2010-2011). Total percent of population below poverty line in
agricultural wage sector and highly marginalized Dalit caste is 44 percent which is muchhigh than National level (25 Percent). Moreover, political and bureaucratic representation of3

According to the Human Development Report of 2010, the 20th Anniversary Edition, Nepal is one of the top
countries who are the fast movers in increasing their Human Development level.
2these marginalized communities has been very low as compared to their proportion in
population.
1.1 Objective of the Study:
The objective of this study is to find out; to the what extent the reservation policy initiated by
the government of Nepal has squarely address the problems of exclusion in civil service of
Nepal.
In gaining this objective, this study has tried to seek answer for the following sub question:
A. Who are the excluded groups in Nepal?
B. What are the major problems related to the exclusion?
C. What are the policy responses in solving those problems of exclusion?
D. Is the reservation policy sufficient enough to address the problem?
1.2 Analytical framework(a) The dependent variables are the problems created by exclusion which include
under-representation in civil service, lower competitive capacity, and low attraction towards
civil services.
(b) The independent variables is the reservation policy of the government of Nepal..
(c) And, the hypothesis is "Despite some achievements, inadequate policy response and weak
implementation has not been able to squarely address the problems of exclusion in civil
service of Nepal."This research is mostly qualitative and descriptive. This paper has tried to focus on impact of
the reservation policy on increasing participation and capacity development throughdocumentary analysis of reservation practices in Nepal with special focus on the attraction of
marginalized communities towards civil service and their success rates.
1.3 Data and material used:
All the data used is secondary data. Most of the used data are from Annual Reports of PublicService Commission (PSC), Human Development Reports by UNDP, Nepal Living Standard
3

Survey (NLSS) 2010-2011, Population and Housing Census 2011 by Nepalese Central
Bureau of Statistics, and Personnel Information System (PIS) of Nepal Government.
1.4 The implications of results
This research is a small attempt to categorize the issues of exclusion in civil service of Nepal
and assessment of constraints in public policies as a response to the issues. Furthermore, it
has tried to identify some key issues for future researches. The recommendation might beuseful for policy makers.
2. THEORETICAL CONCEPT OF RESERVATIONState has been regarded to be a product of human action. State operates through the loyaltyof the people so it has some obligations for its citizens. State belongs to all the people so it
has to create such a conducive environment where every kind of citizens' right are secure andthey can freely exercise their opportunities. People feel justice when they get equal access topower, resource and opportunity created by the state.
Societies have been found to be fragmented over religion, gender, ethnicity, race, color andculture since long. This is why we cannot find a state where justice has been fully realized byeach and every people. In order to overcome the situation, the notion of inclusiveness has
been introduced. It tries to correct the historical wrongs made by state to some of its people.
Reservation or Affirmative action is one of the tools of inclusive policy which is mainly
focused on increasing participation through employment, of marginalized people ingovernment and related services as well as in education system of the country. Beside this,developing their competitive capacity is another intention. However, this concept is not freeof controversy.

Many scholars believe that Reservation affects the merit based selection(Chalam, 1990). Furthermore, it helps in preserving the discrimination because state itself,
through reservation, recognize people with separate status.
Many states has implemented Reservation as a tool to solve the problem of exclusion in our4societies. Thus, it is necessary to clarify the concept of exclusion first. Adelman and Morris(1973) see it as lack of opportunity to meet basic needs for substantial sections of the
population. Sen regard this as a 'capability deprivation' and describes two forms of exclusion;
active exclusion and passive exclusion in our societies4. Sen further clarifies that both formsof exclusion are important, to consider, but not in similar way. Similarly, Institute on Social
Exclusion, Alder School of Professional Psychology has defined Social exclusion asprocesses by which entire communities of people are systematically blocked from rights,
opportunities, and resources that are normally available to members of society and that are
key to social integration.5
3. PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS
Exclusion is one of the oldest problem in our societies. Exclusion practiced or perceived,
limits people’s opportunities to participate freely and fully in the community, halting thesystem to achieve the set objectives. It is psycho-biologically painful as well6. Its negative
effects on society can destabilize our systems. Another aspect is that it is against global
concept of Human Right. Due to many conventions against discrimination at the global level,
the issue of exclusion has not remained mere domestic issue in any country. Many scholars
have tried to relate exclusion with widespread poverty. According to them exclusions
increases poverty and ultimately poverty becomes a reason for exclusion as well (Sen, 2000).
Solution to exclusion may be different in different context. Basically it depends on the typeof exclusion which exists in the society. As the concept of social exclusion has been used invery different ways, different countries have tried to solve those issues in their own way.
However, these efforts are commonly known as inclusive measures. Reversing the process of
4

According to Sen Active Exclusion arises from the policies directly taken by a state. Such as immigrants andrefugees do not get political status from the state so they fall on actively excluded category. On the other side when, thedeprivation comes about through social processes in which there is no deliberate attempt to exclude, the exclusion can beseen as a passive kind. A good example is provided by poverty and isolation generated by a sluggish economy and aconsequent accentuation of poverty.
5
http://www.adler.edu/page/institutes/institute-on-social-exclusion/about
6
MacDonald, G., & Leary, M. R. has studied the relationship between social and physical pain and found that is it aspainful as other physical pain. Their research is published in Psychological bulletin, 131(2), 202.
5

exclusion needs mainstreaming the marginalized communities and provide them rightful
sharing in Power, Resource and Opportunity (Korten, 2011). There may be many kinds oftools for social inclusion; Positive Discrimination, End of Discrimination, Equality, Social
Security, and Reservation. However, these inclusive measures are not free of controversies.
Many scholar believe that Social Inclusion policies specially Reservation policies further
increase the discrimination in our society and it is against the principle of equal treatment by
a state as well (Pojman, 2010)
4. EXCLUSION IN NEPAL
Nepal is a multifaceted country regarding social structure which involves multi-ethnic,
multi-religious and multi-linguistic societies. More than 125 caste/ethnic groups speaking
more than 90 languages, live in different parts of this small mountainous country.
The main 10 Caste/Ethnic group is presented in the table 1.
Table 1. Major Caste/Ethnic Groups

Caste/Ethnicity

Population:

Percentage:

Chhetri

4,398,179

16.6

Bramhin Hill

3,226,903

12.2

Magar

1,887,733

7.1

Tharu

1,737,470

6.6

Tamang1,539,830

5.8

Newar

1,321,933

5.0

Kami

1,258,554

4.8

Muslim

1,164,255

4.4

Yadav

1,054,458

4.0

Rai

620,004

2.3(Source: Population and Housing Census, 2011)

The Chhetris and Bramhin are regarded as higher class in the Hindu caste system. They6

consist of 28.8 percent of the population. The total Indigenous Nationalities7 includes morethan 40 percent of population. The Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities8 hasclassified the 59 indigenous groups into five categories based on a set of socioeconomic
indicators: ‘endangered’, ‘highly marginalized’, ‘marginalized’, ‘disadvantaged’ and‘advantaged’. At the bottom of the scale are the so-called endangered and highly
marginalized groups. These groups rank very low on human development indicators. Morethan 90% of endangered and highly marginalized groups live in remote rural areas and relyon subsistence agriculture or hunting and gathering.9 The Thakalis and Newar caste belong
to the advantaged category. On the other side, Dalit consist 13 percent of the population.
Dalit are untouchable groups under Hindu caste system. By religion, Hindus dominates thecountry with 81.3 percent of the total population. The figure below shows the distribution of
population by religion:
Figure. 1: Population by Religion:(Source: Population and Housing Census, 2011)

Moreover, 1.94 percent of total population is disabled and has a kind of or multiple type of789Natioanl Janajati Development Committee identified 59 types of Indigenous Notionalities in Nepal.
http://www.nefin.org.np/index.php
http://un.org.np/oneun/undaf/endangered7

disability On literacy side, the total literacy rate is 65.9 percent. However, 57.4 percent of
women are only literate while in male population the percent of literacy is 75.1 percent. This
figure also show that women of Nepal are far behind male in terms of education.
The level of marginalization in different groups can be seen from different figures.
According to Nepal human development report 2009 Poverty incidence of Nepal in 2003-04
was 30.8 % on average. Though, disaggregated data by caste and ethnicity indicated thehighest level of poverty in Dalits at 45.5 %, hill Ethnic Nationalities at 44 %, Muslims at
41.3 % and Terai Ethnic Nationalities at 35.4 %, respectively. Likewise, Newars have it at 14%, Brahmin/Chhetri at 18.4 % and the Terai middle caste at 21.3 % (NHD Report 2009,p.45).
The disaggregated data of 2010-2011 NLSS survey shows almost the same trend. Incidenceof poverty is much high than national level in Dalits of Hill and Terai. Newars are only thecaste group under ethnic nationalities, which has lower incidence of poverty. (See in Table)
Table 2. Poverty incidence according to caste/race:
Ethnicity/RacePopulation under Poverty line
(In percentage)

Population Distribution

Hill Bramhin

10.34

12.7

Hill Chhetri

23.40

17.8

Terai Bramhin

18.61

0.5

Terai Middle Caste

28.69

15.4

Hill Dalit

43.63

8.7

Terai Dalit

38.16

4.6

Newar

10.25

6.2

Ethnic Nationalities-Hill

28.25

21.8

Ethnic Nationalities-Terai

25.93

7.1

Muslim

20.18

4.3

Others12.34

0.9

Source: Nepal Living Standard Survey
8

The important thing to notice with this disaggregated data is that decreases in poverty rates
havebeen very unequal across the caste ethnic groups. The most excluded group is Madhesi Dalit,
followed by hill Dalit, Muslims and Terai and Hill Ethnic Nationalities. This reveals thatmarginalized caste and ethnic groups have higher poverty incidences and greater genderdifferentials.
Not only in economic aspect, dalit people have been facing discrimination of untouchability
as well from long before. Untouchability is one of the inhumane discrimination existing inthis country. Altogether, there are also many other indigenous ethnic and caste groups who
have been historically disadvantaged, and who continue to lag behind in their income andasset levels, educational achievements and human development indicators, and to the extent
to which they are represented in the power structure.

9

4.1 Who are the excludes?
Forms of marginalization or exclusion has been measured very few times in Nepal but
exclusion in this country is expected to expand on several dimensions. However, The Nepal
Gender and Social Exclusion Assessment (GSEA) Report, 200610 has categorized six
dimension of social exclusion in Nepal (See Table 3). These dimension include: Gender,
Caste, Ethnicity/Race, Language, Religion, and Geo/Political. Form of exclusion on eachdimension may be different but women falls on all the dimensions and the level of exclusion
have been noticed to enhance as the area of dimension expands. It means women ofsubordinate caste group faces more exclusion than woman of dominant caste group.
Table 3: Dimensions of Exclusion in Nepal:

Source: GSEA Report, 2006

4.2 Causes of the Exclusion:
Many scholars have tried to find the reason behind this multi-faceted exclusion in Nepal.
Bhattachan (2009) blames practice of Hindu caste system and discriminatory laws practiced
by feudal rulers as the main culprit. Nepal remained under feudal and authoritarian regime
for more than 200 years and the foundation for the rule was mostly Hindu system. In Hindu
societies, practice of caste division has been seen common, though some argue (Jain, 2011)that caste system that is practiced today is not desired output of caste division by ancient
10

GSEA was combined effort of UNDP and DFID to explore the dimension of exclusion in Nepal. Summary report
entitled ‘Unequal Citizens’ is available at:
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTSOCIALDEV/Resources/3177394-1168615404141/NepalGSEASummaryReport-pa
rt1.pdf
10

Hinduism.11 Whatever it be, caste system is seen in parts of India and Nepal where most of
the Hindu people live. As the mechanism for the governance was based on Hindu system in
Nepal, caste system also reflected in the domestic laws. For instance, The Muluki Ain or
Country Code of 1854 AD brought all these diverse groups of Nepal together under a single
legal system and created a hierarchy based on Hindu division. Those people who were not
Hindu were also placed on a hierarchy. This system remained, on legal grounds, for many
years until 1962 when a law was passed making it illegal to discriminate against theuntouchable castes.
The consequence of the exclusion reflects on several dimensions but if we consider for the
excluded people under the six dimension explained above, the common problem faced bythem is poverty, under-representation and discrimination.
Closeness and isolation from rest of the world became enabling factor to sustain different
forms of exclusion in Nepal. Though the process of building domestic regulation based onprinciple of justice began in 1950s when feudal regime ended and Nepal turned into
democratic state, but royal took-over of political regime in 1960 forced the country
backward and King's authoritarian rule remained for more 30 years. Several corrective
measures were initiated by the government in this period also but the royal inclination was
more with Hindu caste system which resulted in extension of marginalization of non-Hindus
and so called lower caste groups.
Figure 2 represents the hierarchy system that existed in Nepal.

11

According to Jain, system of varna caste division was the outcome of tolerance and trust. He argues, “Though it
may now have degenerated into an instrument of oppression and intolerance and tends to perpetuate inequality and develop
the spirit of exclusiveness, these unfortunate effects were not the central motives of the varna (Division) system.”
11

Figure- 2: Caste Hierarchy created by civil law of Nepal.

(Source: Bennet et al., 2006)

The woman, on each and every caste group, remained marginalized because of the maledominated society as same as in many other countries. The Gender Equity Index for the
women of Nepal is 47 which is considered very low.12 The women of Nepal have beenfound suffering from many forms of discrimination; Social, Cultural, Legal, Political andEconomical. Despite they constitute half of the population, their representation ingovernment, politics, bureaucracy, development activities and resource sharing wascomparatively much lower. For instance, women contribution to agricultural production
being above 60 percentage, the total land holding is merely eight percent. (SocialWatch)
Regain of democracy in 1990 opened the doors of Nepal to globalization. Free flow of ideas
through many actors like NPOs, NGOs and other institutions bought western concept ofgovernance and diversity management into this country. Nepal became signatory to may
international convention on Human Rights and conventions on non-discrimination against
women and other backward communities. Being party to these conventions, it was necessary
to amend domestic laws in accordance to international standards. In the same period, Ethnic

12

www.socialwatch.org
12Nationalism got fertile environment to grow and marginalized people began to demand forpro-marginalized policies as pointed out by Hangen (2007).
New movements initiated in Nepal became enabling factors to introduce the concept ofSocial Inclusion, Social Security and Affirmative actions in Nepalese domain. Nepalese civil
service being highly dominated by upper caste people and people living in urban areas like
Newar communities, demand for quota on civil service went strong. The table provided by
Lawoti (2007) shows the representation of different caste/race groups in civil service as wellas other sectors of Nepal before the introduction of inclusive policies in Nepal.

(Source: Lawoti, 2007)

4.3 Problems of the Exclusion:
The facts given above clearly point out that several communities of Nepal have been
excluded from the mainstream. Not only direct or indirect discrimination but poverty andunder-representation in governance system have also been some common problems they arefacing. It is responsibility of a state to correct this undesirable situation as soon as possible.

135. INTRODUCTION OF RESERVATION SYSTEM IN NEPAL:
Nepalese government constructed a project named Governance Reform Program(2001-2005). One of the responsibility of this project was also to explore the level ofmarginalization and to suggest corrective measures for the government. The project report,
first time in Nepal, proposed quota reservation for marginalized people of Nepal. The Interim
Constitution of Nepal 2007 also

guaranteed the right to equality. Clause 3 of article 13

mentions that “nothing shall be deemed to prevent the making of special provisions by law
for the protection, empowerment or advancement of women, Dalits, ethnic nationalities(Adibasi-janajati), Madhesi or farmers, laborers or those who belong to a class which is
economically, socially or culturally backward or children, the aged, disabled or those whoare physically or mentally incapacitated”. This constitutional provision along with someother similar provision opened the door to establish Reservation system in civil service of
Nepal. Eventually, to make civil service more representative, the second amendment of the
Civil Service Act in 1991 has made provision to recruit 45 percent of the employees on
inclusive basis. Of these 33 percent are reserved for women, 27 percent for the
Adibasi-janajatis (Ethnic Nationalities), 22 percent for Madhesi (terai people), 9 percent for
the Untouchables, 5 percent for disabled and the rest 4 percent for backward areas. Here, forthe clarification of the law, Aadibasi means antediluvian Residence, Janjati means Excluded
from Hindu caste classification, Madhesi means Claimed antediluvian residence of terai
region and has specific cast, mother tongue and culture. Similarly, Dalit means previously
discarded untouchable and segregated groups of cast, Disabled means Physically or mentally
unable, and Women means Human female.
Beside this, the Act also made an arrangement of reviewing the impact of the above
provision in a period of ten years. Moreover, the Act has fixed 40 years as the age bar for
women candidates to enter in the civil service, whereas the maximum age for entry into theservice is 35 years. The government of Nepal has, through a notification in The Nepal
14

Gazette, specified the positions for which only women candidates could compete owing to
the specific nature of the work involved. Civil servants who fall under the above inclusive
category have a grace period of one year for being the potential candidates for promotion.
5.1 Nepalese Civil Service:
Nepalese civil service is one of the major employment creator in Nepal. For instance, in2012 Public Service Commission asked application for 2803 vacancies in government job.
Though the history of modern civil service is much shorter than the history of the country.
Modern Nepalese civil service got it foundation only after dawn of democracy in 1951. That
year Public Service Commission was established and Butch Commission leaded by N.M.
Butch, an Indian administrative expert, suggested to build some basic structure of civil
service in Nepal. This was the starting point and it grew further. Present Administrative
structure of Nepal government is segmented into the central and field levels. At the centrallevel, there are Ministries, Departments, Constitutional Bodies and other central level offices.
It is assumed that out of 75,000 civil servants 40 percent are employed at the central level.
All the civil servants are hired on a permanent basis by the Public Service Commission(PSC).
According to constitutional provision of Nepal, Public Service Commission is a soleauthority to conduct examinations for the selection of suitable candidates to be appointed to
Civil Service positions. In order to select suitable candidates through open competition, it
conducts competitive written examinations, competitive practical examination, Short-listingsof candidates, and Interview for the final selection. The vacant positions in Government
Offices need to be given to PSC and it selects suitable candidates for those positions andrecommends the government to appoint them. These government position are of several
types but basically divided into three categories; Gazetted, Non-gazetted and Class-less.
Under these categories there are different positions. All these categories along with positions
fall under 10 types of services which from civil service in Nepal.
15

Many efforts have been undertaken in the past to make better Nepalese Civil service. For
instance, Administrative Reorganization Planning Commission, under the Prime Minister
Tanka Prasad Acharya, played very important role in introducing the Civil Service alongwith the availability of necessary rules and regulations in the field. Following the Acharya
Commission of 1956, various attempts on administrative reforms through the formation ofcommissions were made in Nepal as the commissions submitted their reports with necessary
recommendations.13 Unfortunately, even a single commission never brought the policy ofinclusion to disadvantaged groups – Women, Madhesi, Ethnic Nationalities, Dalit, and othermarginalized in administrative mechanism of the country. As a result, these groups remained
marginalized and deprived of representation in the civil service. Thus, during feudal Ranaand Authoritarian Panchayat regime, they were deprived of congenial environment ofopportunity to join the civil service and pro-marginalized civil service curriculum. In this
scenario, the main objective to introduce Reservation in Nepalese civil service was to build
such an environment where deprived people can also enter the service. Because, before the
new system, very few candidates of these groups were able to enter the service and therepresentation of these communities in civil service was much low than their ratio in
population.
6. ASSESSMENT OF RESERVATION SYSTEM IN NEPAL:
Five consecutive years have been passed since the introduction of reservation policy in
Nepal. This period is not sufficient enough to evaluate the effectiveness of any public policy.
However, it is necessary to analyze the trends it has shown. For this, use of data generated by
PSC has been considered as appropriate in evaluating the reservation system because PSC is
the sole authority to conduct various types of examinations in civil service of Nepal. Afterthe implementation of the system, five annual reports have been released by PSC. This
analysis is mostly based on those reports.
13

Some of the major commission to suggest on reform of the Nepalese civil service in this period include the Jha
Commission: 1968, Thapa Commission: 1975, and Koirala Commission: 1990.
16

6.1 Allotment of Seats14:
In this period PSC published notices for 17 thousand 6 hundred and 59 seats. Among them,
2031 were for promotion based schemes, 2206 for internal competition examinations and
13422 for Open Competition. Out of these 13422 seats, 8329 seats were allotted for freeopen competition and 5093 were allotted for reserved quotas commonly known as inclusive
seats.
The figures above reflects that percentage-wise allotment of the seats for inclusive quotas isonly 38 percent. This seems low than what the civil service act has provided (45 Percent).
This happened because PSC operates on three different kind of acts; Civil Service Act,
Health Service Act and Parliament Secretariat Act. Health service act has not yet introduced
the reservation system, so those all seats related to health services have been counted as
non-inclusive seats.
The table 4 shows further division of the 5093 seats under different inclusive groups. Thisdivision does not seems in accordance with the provisions of the laws. This is because of theerror in allotment of decimal points. Though, total allotment percent for inclusive groups is
45 percent and in the sub groups it is almost near to the legal provisions.
Table-4: Allotted seats for Reserved Quotas:
Reserved Category

Number of Seats:

Percentage:

Woman

1743

34

AJ

1334

26

Madhesi

1113

22

Dalit

526

10

Disabled

233

5Remote Area

144

3

TOTAL:

5093

100

14

Here Seat means the vacant positon in civil service which needs fo be fulfilled by PSC with different types of
examinations.
176.2 Gender-wise distribution of the Applicant:Number of women and male applicants in the five consecutive years is shown in the table 5.
.Table 5: Male-Female ratio of the Applicants:
Women
S.N

Year

1

Men

Number

PercentageNumber

Percentag
e

Total

2008

67,435

39

107,68761

175,1222

2009

32,45738

53,711

62

86,1683

2010

139,96347

160,500

53

300,4634

2011

110,30743

141,34457

251,6515

2012

113,78542

157,79258

271,577(Source: PSC Reports)

According to this table, we can say that the number of women candidates has increased after
the introduction of the reservation system. However, it is not up to the demographic
composition where female population is 51.5 percent and male is 48.5 percent of the total
population.
6.3 Number of Successful Candidates
In these five years 10,809 candidate were able to succeed the open as well as inclusive typesof examinations (including interview examination also). Out of this, number of candidates on
inclusive category were 3561 which is about 33 percent of the total seats. The number of

SN

Reserved Category

Number of Seats:

Percentage:

1

Woman

1310

37

2

AJ

975

27

3

Madhesi

730

20

4

Dalit

302

9

5

Disabled

141

4

6

Remote Area

103

3

TOTAL:

3561

100

successful candidates under different inclusive groups is shown in the table 6.
18

Above table shows that number of successful candidates is not accordance with the allotted
percentage by the law. Percentage of women seems higher than the allotted percentage while
percentage of Madhesi, Disabled and Remote area is low in compassion to allotted
percentage. Reason behind this can be related to the situation where nobody becomes able toget the minimum marks in the examination. According to PSC reports, 277 seats on Inclusive
categories were unfulfilled because no candidate became able to get the minimum required
level in the examination. This incidence reflects two major pints:
A. Entry of marginalized community cannot be ensured just by allotting certain seats.
B. Though some people argue that affirmative action of seat reservation affects theprinciple of meritocratic selection, this type of mixed system (with quota andmeritocratic selection) will not give merit based selection to die. Even the seats arereserved for certain groups, they have to at least get minimum requirements to enter theservice.
6.4 Gender Status in Civil Service:
Table shows the male female ratio in civil service of Nepal as per data given by Nijamti
Kitabkhana, (the Personnel record office of the Government of Nepal):
Table 7: Ratio of Male and Female Employees:
Year:

Female

Male

Total

2008

8774

11.09

70368

88.91

79142

2009

8713

11.96

64125

88.04

72838

2010

9749

13

65225

87

74974

2011

10773

13.84

67075

86.16

77848

2012

11679

14.67

67928

85.33

79607

Source: Nijamati Kitabkhana, 2013

Above data shows that the number of women employee has increased from 11.9 percent of
the total employees at the base year to 14.67 percent of the total employees in 2012. If wetake 5 years increment of women employees in numbers, it is 2905. But the number of19women who succeeded to enter the civil service through reservation system is only 1310. It
means 1595 women were able to enter civil services without using reserved seas. However,in these years, 1098 women were able to enter civil service through some special schemes
where only women can compete. Most of these schemes were on health services which
include staff nurses and assistant health workers. These are not the reserved seats but theseats only applicable for the women candidates.
Figure 3: Chart showing increasing number of Women in Civil Service:

Thus, only 497 women have been able to enter
civil service without using reserved quotas andotherwomen-specificexaminations.

Thisnumber is indeed very low for a 5 years period
and reveals the fact that different programs onenhancing the capacity of women candidates
are needed. Not only for women but this type ofprogram are needed for all the inclusive subgroup candidates.
6.5 Caste Analysis of Reserved Seats:
PSC reports have not presented the caste-wise distribution of the candidates for Reservedseats. However it has provided caste distribution for the total number of applicants. For
instance, out of total 271,577 applicants (in 2012), 39 percent were from Brahmin caste, 15
percent from Chhetri caste, 5 percent from Magar caste, 4 percent from Newar and about 3
percent from Tharu (Terai indigenous) caste. This figure shows that attraction of otherexcluded groups than woman has not increased significantly despite the reservation system.
Similarly, in case of woman, the number of candidates to succeed through reserved seats for
women, belong from higher caste groups such as Bramhin, Chhetri and Newar. For instance,
the recent result for the 19 post of section officer (PSC Advertisement No. 3044/069-70) for
marginalized woman category shows that out of 29 successful
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candidates who have

succeeded in written examination and called for interview, 27 are from Hindu higher caste
groups. The remaining two are from Newar caste which is one of the dominant caste groupin Nepal. In Indigenous Nationalities category as well, Newar has been seen as the dominantcaste. This picture reflects that the reserved quotas has been mostly beneficial for the samegroups who have been dominant in civil service as well governance system since long.
7. DISCUSSIONS:
Reservation is for specific communities only and no one except from allowed communities
can compete in those seats. Thus, reservation is for competition of limited groups only and it
is based on principle of limited meritocracy. Like fingers of our hand, all the communities
are not of same capacity. Reservation is thus for the people whose representation in civil
service is very low but cannot compete with other capable communities to enter the service.
Civil service is part of government and in democratic system every people of every
communities have the right to participate. Reservation system introduced in Nepal has
created conducive environment for the marginalized to enter the civil services. However, it is
not as comprehensive as it needs to be. Forms of exclusion in Nepal has made different
communities unrepresented in governance system. Most of those unrepresented communities
has got chance through reservation system but exclusion based on religion has not beenrecognized by the Reservation policy. Buddhist and Muslim people are under-represented tillnow.
In case of women, reservation policies has been able to attract them towards civil service as
the number of female applicant seems increasing. But very few female have been able toenter the service without reserved quotas. Capacity development programs are needed toincrease their competitiveness. Moreover, objectivity of the reservation system being
promotion of the economically and socially backward communities, corrective measures areneeded to control the dominant caste group utilizing the quota system to enter the civil
service.
21Moreover, it is not clear in Civil Service Act that how many times a person can utilize
reservation system in his career. It has been seen that a person entering civil service throughreservation system has been able to use the same system to get promoted in upper position(PSC Reports). This phenomenon has created controversies among employees. Lack of clear
policy is responsible for this faulty situation.
8. CONCLUSION:
Reservation or the Affirmative action has been regarded one of the tool to increase theparticipation of underrepresented groups and communities in public services. However,many scholar believe that this system needs proper handling as it may destroy merit based
system in civil service. In case of Nepal, the merit based bureaucratic system of the pastfailed to proportionately recruit people from different marginalized communities. Thus,
social imbalance was created and it prevented a larger section of the society from having
access to opportunities and thereby excluding them. Similarly, the absence of respectable
representation in nation building activities prevented equal benefit sharing. This is why Civil
service Act of Nepal introduced reservation system in government jobs.
Five years of period is not sufficient to evaluate the impact of the policy. However, impacts
created needs to be assessed so as to direct this policy towards its goal. This newly
introduced system has been able to give some positive impacts in terms of increasing
representation of some marginalized communities but has created some controversies andconfusions as well. If reservation is not categorized properly as a tool of inclusion, it may
continue to be under the domination of a limited elite group even within the excluded groups.
Moreover, ultimate objective of this policy is capability enhancement, as said by Sen (2000),
so more considerations are needed in building meaningful participation. Nepalese reservation
system has not given comprehensive attention to all the dimensions of exclusion but its
effects on generating attraction of some marginalized people towards national bureaucraticsystem is praiseworthy.
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