Nepal's public policy making does not seem to be in a systematic and well thought out state. The scope of policy understanding in the responsible bodies is also narrow and limited. A Policy Lab has been conceptualized and arranged in the Council of Ministers and the Prime Minister's Office for the past few months.

  In the context of

policy making, a policy lab is a very useful mechanism, which aims to study, experiment, test and improve the policy making process . When properly managed and operated, it can contribute to policy making with innovative thinking . This policy laboratory established in the Cabinet and the Prime Minister's office seems to have some practice in policy refinement and modification. 

In this policy laboratory, the policy documents issued by the executive are discussed and modified only. There is no compelling reason to implement these policies. Legislature-Parliament discusses about the laws that will be implemented by converting the policies of the state into laws and making them legally enforceable. In the pre-legislative stage of drafting the bill, it is equally important to have this type of expert discussion and consultation, as well as the mechanism and facility to take suggestions from professional, commercial and civil stakeholders in the legislative parliament. It seems that attention has not been paid to this. 

The issue of common parents, academics, students and citizens' concerns like school education, without comprehensive discussion among all levels and levels, becoming the subject of teacher's organizations and private school management's taunts and the blocking of the bill are the main reasons for the errors in our policy (method) formulation process . According to the constitution, the local level is the real policy maker and manager of school education, but the local level seems to be neglected in this process.

The scope and field of public policy is and should be vast. All types of decisions taken by the government, initiatives, plans and all types of strategies formulated on behalf of the government to address public interest or citizen concerns are included in the definition of public policy. Acts made by the Legislative Parliament are the main and important tools at the forefront of public policy, which have great legal importance and supremacy in a democratic system.

According to public policy expert Thomas Dye, the decision taken by the government to do all the work for the public interest and welfare and not to do anything that will hinder the public interest is included in the definition of public policy . In other words, public policy is the sum of actions that the government does or does not take. However, it is customary for us to understand policy as a policy document made by the ministries and agencies of the Government of Nepal in relation to a thematic and sectoral category. 

In fact, there does not seem to be any specific purpose of any policy document issued by the Ministry of the Government of Nepal. For example, the National Education Policy, 2076 is an insignificant document. This type of policy document does not seem to have any great impact and importance except for clarifying the government's perception or approach in a field and category. It is said that the number of this type of policy database with procedures, standards and guidelines is in the number of 100,000. 

Policy documents of this type are added every year. As soon as a new minister is appointed to take over the leadership of the ministry, there is a tendency to take it as an achievement to formulate a sectoral policy related to his ministry during his tenure. No objective and concrete analysis of the rationale and necessity of the policy is done . These types of policies are made without meaningful participation of the stakeholders . Such policies are not objective .  The draft structure of the

policy document also lacks consistency. The policy made in this way does not have any binding provisions for implementation like the law made by the legislative parliament, it seems to be stuck as a paper document. Failure to follow and implement the provisions in the policy document will not result in any action or consequence. It is alleged that a lot of money is spent with the help of consultants in the process of preparing the draft of some of these policy documents. But it seems that there is not much account of the efficiency of the policy made in this way. 

How successful these types of policies were, how useful the provisions in the policies were as reference materials when the legislative parliament made the law, and what is the status of implementation, is not found to be reviewed and evaluated. A well-conducted policy review can find out whether the expected results have been achieved and what are the problems in the policy. By doing this, the party that needs to be improved or modified in the policy is also identified .

For some time now, there has been an initiative to evaluate and review some old policies on behalf of the Policy Research Institute, which is a government expert group (think tank). But it is not a significant number . According to an agricultural expert, there are about 70 policies including laws, procedures, strategies and programs for the development of the agricultural sector. But the number of policies to be implemented seems to be very low . There is a situation where the related agencies and stakeholders may not know about all the policy documents. 

Nobel Prize winner and world famous thinker Dr. Amartya Sen has elaborated on policy and justice in his book The Idea of ​​Justice. Dr. According to Sen, the significance of making and making a policy becomes clear only when that policy is implemented and the welfare of the common people is achieved. Comparing his own country, India and China, he says - In India, many policies are made, but most of those policies remain on paper . However, in China, the policies of the state are implemented and even though it is an authoritarian system in terms of politics, China has made unprecedented progress in terms of social and economic development. 

In a country with a democratic system, policies should be formulated for civil liberties and interests, and those policies are expected to be implemented effectively. However, in democratic countries like Nepal and India, the expected progress in transforming state policy into justice does not seem to have been made. 

We are now under the federal system and the federal constitution of Nepal has entrusted the work of policy making to the three levels of government . It is clearly mentioned in the schedule of the constitution of Nepal that the union, state and local government should make policies. 

especially the work of making policy on issues that fall under a single jurisdiction is a subject of the government's own reserved right . This matter has also been clarified by the Union, State and Local Level (Coordination and Interconnection) Act which was made in 2077 to coordinate between the three levels of government . However, it seems that the compliance of this arrangement has not been done well. It seems that the union government has made policies on most of the issues that fall under the jurisdiction of the state and local levels. For example, the policy on compulsory and free school education seems to have been made by the Ministry of Education of the Union Government. According to the constitution, this matter falls under the jurisdiction of the local government.

A cursory look at the provisions of this policy seems to assign most of the tasks related to compulsory and free education to the local level. It seems incongruous for the association to make a policy on matters that are within the jurisdiction of the local level and assign the responsibility to the local level again . Yes, this work is not possible only from the local level when talking about practical aspects and capabilities. But these kinds of policies should be built in a participatory manner in collaboration with the local level.

It is not possible for the local government alone to fulfill the responsibility of the state regarding free school education in such an important matter, and the three levels of government should join in this work . However, the level of cooperation and participation that should have been done on behalf of the federal government during the formulation of the policy, especially the ownership and adoption of the local government, was not done.

We don't seem to have a particular identity about the political system and policy making that we have adopted now. Since our federal republican system is based on the parliamentary system, the legislative parliament is the main body of policy and law making of the state. Currently, the federal legislature (House of Representatives and National Assembly), provincial legislature (Provincial Assembly) and local legislature (Nagar Sabha/Village Assembly) are the places of law making.

According to the principle of separation of powers, the legislative parliament makes policies, i.e. laws, the executive executes them, and the judiciary works to see whether the laws have been implemented in accordance with the essence and spirit of the constitution, and to determine whether the issues of civil rights have been violated. Accordingly, the role of the legislature should be made more vocal and effective in policy making. Apart from some important and necessary issues, instead of creating all kinds of policy documents, focusing on the implementation and review of the policies (laws) is the responsibility of the executive, that is, the government.