Women's Day Special :Interview with Kamini Rajbhandari, the first female and the present Managing Director of Nepal Telecom

Q.No.1 Being a Nepali woman, have you ever faced gender stereotype? Is there any problem at workplace being women?

Answer: There are some problems for women at workplace. But, I am someone who totally believes that it all depends on how you perceive those problems. For me, it was very difficult to continue my further studies at AIT. I had a 3-year old son. My parents had passed away, and my in-laws were very old. I didn’t have enough support then.  However, I was determined to complete my education, and I did it. You need to face the problems, and accept them as a challenge. The bigger the problems are, the bigger the opportunities will be.

Q.No.2 Being the managing director of NTC, where do you see NTC in 10 years?

Answer: We at NTC constantly work on formulating short and long term strategies to deliver the best communication services in the country. Ten years down the line, I see NTC still continuing to be the RASTRA KO SANCHAR with improved services and technology.

Q.No.3 Are government policies regarding information and telecommunication favorable in Nepal Telecom?

Answer: NTC, being almost a government organization with around 91.49% of government share,  8.48% of public share and 0.03% of Nagarik Lagaani Kosh,  needs to follow all the rules and regulations based on government policy. NTC also has its own rules and regulations. Based on these policies, we move forward. I would like to believe, the policies are favorable. One thing I would like to say is we have to compete with private companies where the implementation of policies is less procedural. In our case, we have to go for the tender, and have procurement rules, which take a good amount of time. This delays us from moving into the market, which sometimes becomes a big disadvantage to us.

Q.No.4 When we talk about NTC, "Rastrako Sanchar" is what we trigger. Does NTC meet that?

Answer: Definitely, NTC is a “Rastrako Sanchar”.  The statistics says it all: till Bhadra, we have served 18 million customers. The tele-density is 63.02 meaning 63 out of 100 people are using NTC services.NTC is the only company who is providing various kinds of services, in all the 75 districts. We provide both wireless and wire line services to the customers through GSM, CDMA, landline service etc. considering the geography of our country. During election we provided VSAT, an expensive and difficult service for customers, without taking any profit. We value our customers, and do not compromise in quality and convenience. And, it's them who make NTC a RASTRAKO SANCHAR.

Q.No.5 There has been a strong competition in NTC in terms of market share quality or service it is providing. What is your roadmap or strategy to gain competitive advantage over them?

Answer: Market is, indeed, very competitive. Emerging technologies and change in customers demand have made it even tougher. NTC leads efforts to embrace the technology, and create value to its customers. We are already providing high speed internet (4G), voice, data, and videos service under the same network in urban cities. Now, we are proceeding to displace the same services to the most remote areas of Nepal. The plans are ready, and tender has been published. Quality has been our primary concern than expansion. We are transforming the old land line service with the IP based technology. The converse day time billing system is also updated, where all the services are converged in a single bill.

Q.No.6 How much emphasis is the company giving on network security which is a major concern in telecommunication industry?

Answer: Network security is one of the major challenges not only to NTC but every company. As we know, multiple services are going through a single network of NTC. We categorize the services into important and non-important groups. Then, we go for firewalls and other many updated technologies, which help us secure the network.

Q.No.7 What new services and technologies is the company planning to introduce and undertake in its progress?

Answer: We are planning to go for mobile money that allows payment, subscription and many other functions via mobile. The plan includes loan facilities without service charge to the customers when their balance reaches certain limit. And, we are also studying the feasibilities to introduce the services like “WOW TIME APP’ that we had launched some months ago for customers' convenience regarding payments.

Q.No.8 What prospects do students like us have in telecommunication industry?

Answer: NTC has introduced real time development for employees under human resource. I opened the recruitment that was pending for 33-34 years in NTC after being appointed as the MD of NTC. We do both internal and external recruitments.  The selection of the candidates involves certain procedures, and NTC always looks for energetic and motivated employees or interns for that matter. So, the future is bright for students like you in NTC and telecommunication industry as a whole with 100% job placement for the deserving ones.

Q.No.9 Around 60% of Nepalese chooses NTC to connect with each other. What is the main reason for customers' loyalty towards NTC?

Answer: There was a report published from Nepal Telecommunication Authority (NTA), which is the relational body for all the operators in Nepal. They published one report based on a research conducted between Ncell and NTC, and made some comparisons. They showed billing system of NTC to be better than the prime lock-keepers and the quality too is much better. We constantly work on every area to deliver the best. We have operated 198 customer care centers and 3G service which is free throughout Nepal. We focus on customers' convenience the most. These little things create value to our customers, and we are happy to serve them.

Q.No.10 According to you what is the main problem of today’s youth?

Answer: One of the main problems of today's youth is ignorance. They do not have any idea about what and why they do things they are doing. This invites brain-drain among students. We cannot blame only the students for this. It is also because of the Nepalese education system.  We are not able to convince the students that a lot of things can be done and achieved in Nepal. The quality of education is equally good here or even better than abroad for that matter.

Q.No.11 There is a huge gap between the academic world and the practical world in Nepal. Do you think it is the problem why the youths face problems when they enter into workforce?

Answer: There should be certain standard for running colleges and schools. People are running colleges and schools in a single building in Nepal. What quality of manpower can we expect from such colleges with almost no infrastructure? So, I feel that the structure and environment must be favorable, and the facilities and infrastructure like labs, computers, and practical internships in the related fields must be available so that the students won’t face any difficulties when they enter into workforce as they will graduate as trained manpower in the related fields from well-equipped colleges and universities.


Interviewers : Prasansha Bariya ,Rebika Bhandari, Samrita Tiwari and Rojina Poudel.

Writers: Urusha Joshi and Sarita Oli

Editor : Pravash Rai

Editor-in-Chief : Edna Shrestha


Note : The interview is featured in the print magazine of People's Campus - Management Vision - an opinion based magazine of business and entrepreneurship prepared by the students of People's Campus.