Prime Minister KP Oli has instructed his ministers to set deadlines for their work and bring about visible changes within a month.

Addressing the first Cabinet meeting on Monday after taking oath of office and secrecy from President Ramchandra Paudel, Oli urged his cabinet colleagues to work with urgency.

Along with Oli, other 21 cabinet ministers also took oath of office and secrecy on Monday at a function at the President Office.

“The prime minister clearly instructed us to achieve visible change and show concrete results within one month,” said Prithvi Subba Gurung, Minister for Communication and Information.

The Cabinet meeting also appointed Minister Gurung as government spokesperson. But the government has decided to make public the Cabinet decisions only after 24 hours.

Besides urging his Cabinet colleagues to demonstrate results within a month, the prime minister stressed the need for the government to instill hope within six months that the government is doing a good job.

The prime minister also called for visible improvements across all indicators within one year, while urging ministers to enhance coordination.

Gurung announced the government’s new policy of not releasing Cabinet decisions immediately. Earlier, decisions were made public soon after each Cabinet meeting.

Successive governments have adopted different approaches about releasing Cabinet decisions.

“Cabinet decisions will be kept confidential for 24 hours. Since we have set the rule, neither the prime minister, nor ministers can disclose them before that. Why should we immediately publicise what we are doing? It is your responsibility to learn about it after 24 hours. If we release information prematurely, that will go against our policy of confidentiality,” said Gurung after the Cabinet meeting.

“If anything requires to be made public immediately, it will be announced after the Cabinet’s decision,” said Gurung.

The meeting also decided to upgrade the Kirtipur-based cricket ground to a stadium, Prime Minister Oli announced on his Facebook account, adding that the construction would be completed within 300 days.

The new stadium in Kirtipur will feature state-of-art amenities such as parapets for spectators, floodlights for night games, among other things and will be completed within the 300 days, Oli wrote on Facebook.

Despite cricket’s growing popularity in Nepal, inadequate infrastructure has affected both players’ confidence and spectators’ enjoyment of the game.

Similarly, the Cabinet also decided to compensate family members if a member goes missing and remains unlocated for ten days, with an equal amount provided for a deceased person.

Minister Gurung clarified that this compensation applies mainly to people missing in landslides, floods and other natural calamities where bodies are not found within ten days. And the compensation for those injured in such disasters will be different.

“This is a new decision,” said Gurung. “But in the previous guidelines, those who go missing in natural calamities were not compensated.”

The meeting also entrusted Liladevi Gadtaula as acting chief secretary until a new chief secretary is appointed. This is for the first time that the government has appointed a woman as acting chief secretary.