Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli on Thursday signed work performance contracts with ministers of his Cabinet, outlining the main tasks and expected achievements from their respective ministries in the fiscal year 2024-25.

He also signed a performance agreement with Chief Secretary Eaknarayan Aryal.

“The signing of the contracts aims at achieving the national aspiration of ‘Prosperous Nepal, Happy Nepali’, ensuring timely completion of ongoing infrastructure projects and improvements in service delivery,” Prime Minister Oli's secretariat said after the ceremony.

The performance agreement details the major tasks and targeted results to be achieved within the first 100 days of government formation (by October 22), the second 100 days (by January 25, 2025), and in the remaining period of the fiscal year 2024-25.

The ministers will now sign similar contracts with the secretaries of their respective ministries.

The ministers for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation; Forest and Environment; and Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, who were absent in the signing ceremony on Thursday, will sign the contracts at a later date, the prime minister’s secretariat said.

This is not the first time the prime minister has taken such an initiative.

He signed similar contracts with his ministers in August 2019 during his second stint as prime minister, asking his Cabinet members to implement projects on time and ensure efficiency in service delivery.

Nepal first instituted performance contracts in the mid-2000s, where project chiefs and heads of corporations were required to sign a pledge stating that projects would be completed in time and services would be delivered without delay.

Oli is the first prime minister to ask his ministers to sign such contracts in order to meet development and revenue targets, complete projects on time, ensure budget expenditure and move towards a clean, transparent and efficient service-oriented bureaucracy.

A seminal publication ‘Bureaucrats in Business’ policy report by the World Bank in 1995 defined the performance contracts in the public sector as 'the relationship between the government and government employees managing a state-owned enterprise.’