Kathmandu, March 30

The government enforced a ban today on the use of Facebook and other social networking sites during office hours in the offices and ministries in Singha Durbar.

Spokesperson for the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers Binod Bahadur Kunwar said the government decided to ban social networking sites, reasoning that such acts affect efficiency of the civil servants.  “We do not have any research based data on how the use of social networking sites by civil servants has affected their efficiency but the secretaries of various ministries held a meeting recently where they reached a conclusion that use of social networking sites by civil servants has affected their efficiency,” Kunwar added.

When asked whether the ban would deprive the civil servants of receiving vital information, Kunwar said the civil servants would be allowed to use social networking sites before and after their office hours in the office but if they needed to receive digital information, they could visit government websites, online news portals and they could even use their own email accounts to send and receive information.