Karnali Province’s flagship social protection programme, ‘Bank Account for Every Daughter, Lifetime Security’, has been left in limbo after the provincial government omitted it from its budget for the coming fiscal year.

The move has cast uncertainty over the future of more than 11,000 girls enrolled in the scheme. Although the programme formally remains in place, the government has not deposited money into beneficiaries’ accounts for the past four years.

Launched in the fiscal year 2019-20, the programme aimed to promote gender equality, discourage child marriage and support girls’ education by providing long-term financial security from birth.

Under the scheme, the provincial government transferred funds to local governments during its first three years of implementation, enabling them to open bank accounts for newborn girls and deposit money on their behalf. However, no budget has been released to local governments since then, despite annual allocations in several fiscal years.

The programme, administered through the Ministry of Social Development, covered girls born after July 17, 2019. It was inaugurated on December 18, 2019, by then chief minister Mahendra Bahadur Shahi during a visit to his home district of Kalikot.

Each eligible girl was to receive an initial deposit of Rs1,000 in the first month after birth, followed by Rs500 every month until she turned 20. By that time, the account would have accumulated Rs120,500.

The current fiscal year’s policy had promised to redesign the programme by integrating education, skills training, awareness and capacity-building initiatives targeted at socially and economically disadvantaged girls. But the revised model has yet to materialise.

“We have collected data from all 79 local levels on how many girls have opened accounts, how many remain to be enrolled and the budget required,” said Sunita Paudel, women’s development officer at the ministry’s Social Development Division.

“But without a clear decision from the government, the programme has not been included in next year’s budget. We still don’t know how the revised model will be implemented.”

Provincial Assembly member Kalyani Khadka said it was unreasonable for the government to abruptly halt a programme designed to improve girls’ access to higher education, boost their confidence and encourage families to delay their daughters’ marriage until at least the age of 20.

Khadka, who also chairs the Provincial Affairs Committee, blamed what she described as a culture of major political parties making decisions behind closed doors without consulting women lawmakers.

“Programmes aimed at improving the lives of women should not be discontinued without involving women representatives in the discussion,” she said. “We have urged the chief minister and the concerned authorities to immediately formulate the necessary procedures and resume the programme.”

Khadka said women lawmakers had also raised the issue in the Provincial Assembly and received assurances that the government would address their concerns by introducing the necessary legal framework.

Rastriya Prajatantra Party lawmaker Santoshi Shahi also criticised the government’s decision, saying a programme launched to combat gender-based violence and improve girls’ access to at least secondary education should have been strengthened rather than dropped from the budget.

“The government must explain why it decided not to continue the programme,” she said. “What will happen to the hundreds of millions of rupees already deposited in the bank accounts if the scheme is abandoned?”

Financial records show the provincial government allocated Rs70 million for the programme in 2019-20, but transferred only Rs34.8 million to local governments. In 2020-21, it allocated Rs126 million and released Rs60 million. In 2021-22, Rs160 million was budgeted, of which Rs130 million reached local governments.

Although Rs200 million was allocated in 2022-23 and Rs250 million in 2023-24, no funds were transferred to local governments. The programme was retained in the 2024-25 policy and programmes but received no budget.

For the current fiscal year, the government allocated Rs50 million, but the money has not been released and is likely to remain unspent.

Following the programme’s exclusion from next year’s policy and budget as well, all 11 women members of the Karnali Provincial Assembly submitted a memorandum to Social Development Minister Ghanshyam Bhandari as well as leaders of both the ruling and opposition parties.

They questioned why a programme that already holds hundreds of millions of rupees in savings for more than 11,000 girls had been effectively abandoned.

“Who will take responsibility for the state’s hundreds of millions of rupees and for the rights and future of these beneficiary girls if the programme is left stranded?” the memorandum states.

Parents have also expressed frustration.

Bimala BK of ward 4 in Bangad Kupinde Municipality of Salyan, who gave birth to a daughter on July 20, 2022, said she opened a bank account under the scheme but no money has ever been deposited.

“We opened the account for our daughter’s future, but it is still empty,” she said, adding that local officials have failed to provide clear answers whenever she asks about the programme.

Saraswati Dhamala of ward 7 in Chaukune Rural Municipality in Surkhet opened an account for her one-month-old daughter on May 12 this year after hurriedly collecting the required documents from the ward office.

“But we later heard that the government itself has not decided whether it will continue depositing money,” she said.

Khadka Chand of ward 5 in Simta Rural Municipality in Surekhet said he was worried about what would happen to the money already deposited in his daughter’s account.

Local officials say public interest in the programme has dwindled.

Hasta Bahadur Khadka, ward secretary of Pachal Jharna Rural Municipality-1 in Kalikot, said most parents have stopped opening accounts.

“People still ask us about the programme, but many have already assumed it has been discontinued,” he said.

Nirmala Kumari Shahi, assistant women’s development inspector at Tajakot Rural Municipality in Humla, said parents had virtually stopped visiting ward offices to open accounts over the past year and a half.

Social Development Minister Bhandari acknowledged that uncertainty over the programme’s implementation model had stalled its continuation.

“The programme was suspended because we couldn’t agree on how to move forward,” he said. “If we continue depositing money into individual accounts for 20 years, even the province’s entire budget would not be sufficient.”

According to Bhandari, around Rs420 million is currently lying in beneficiaries’ bank accounts.

The government is considering an alternative model under which the funds would be invested collectively and the returns used to benefit girls, instead of making monthly deposits into individual accounts.

“The Provincial Assembly has agreed in principle that the programme should continue under a new model, but discussions on what that model should be are yet to begin,” he said.

He added that even the Rs50 million allocated for the current fiscal year could not be spent.

“Many lawmakers have made it clear that the programme should not be discontinued,” Bhandari said. “The ministry is preparing for consultations with all political parties to decide how it can be implemented sustainably.”