Analysis
Civic data for Nepal: feasibility study
Can Nepal's public works, budgets and officials be published in one place, with every record linked to its official source?
- Role
- Feasibility study, requirements and data model
- Timeline
- Oct 2026 – present
- Status
- Ongoing
- Feasibility study
- SRS
- ERD
- Process model
- Acceptance criteria
- public data sources assessed
- 8public data sources assessed
- local governments in scope (long term)
- 753local governments in scope (long term)
- city for the MVP
- 1city for the MVP
The question
Public bodies in Nepal already publish a lot: tender notices, audit reports, ward officials, quarterly disclosures under the Right to Information Act. It is spread across hundreds of sites, mostly in Nepali, often in scanned PDFs. Inspired by an independent civic-data site in India, I studied whether a Nepal edition could put those records in one place: who is responsible, what was promised, what is being built, with every record linked to its official source.
Feasibility
| Dimension | Rating | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Technical | High | Scraping, OCR, a relational model, a map and a read-only API are all proven pieces |
| Data availability | Medium | The RTI Act obliges bodies to publish, but formats vary: Nepali text, legacy fonts, scanned PDFs |
| Source reliability | Medium-low | Several sources were unreachable or blocked automated access during testing |
| Legal | Medium | Republish official records verbatim with sources; official contact details only |
| Cost | Low | Free tiers cover an MVP; the real cost is maintaining ingestion |
Data sources assessed
- Public procurement (e-GP): tenders, awards, contractors, values
- Office of the Auditor General: annual audit findings by public body
- Election Commission: elected mayors, deputies and ward chairs
- Metropolitan and municipal websites: ward contacts, notices, procurement, RTI disclosures
- Public Procurement Monitoring Office: rules and debarred firms
- Sub-national treasury reports: local budgets and expenditure
- Government grievance portal: where complaints should go
- RTI proactive disclosures: published by public bodies every three months
SRS excerpt
| ID | Type | Requirement |
|---|---|---|
| FR-01 | Functional | Show every ward's elected officials with their officially published contact details. |
| FR-02 | Functional | List public works per ward: title, value, contractor, status and dates, each linked to its source document. |
| FR-03 | Functional | When a record isn't published, say "not published" and offer a ready-to-file RTI request. |
| FR-04 | Functional | Provide a read-only API so assistants and researchers can query the records. |
| NFR-01 | Non-functional | Archive every source document with a hash and the time it was read; serve from the archive if the source is down. |
| NFR-02 | Non-functional | Store Bikram Sambat and Gregorian dates; convert legacy Preeti text to Unicode. |
| NFR-03 | Non-functional | Never bypass logins or access controls; rate-limit and identify the crawler. |
Process model
- 01FetchPolite crawler or manual import
- 02ArchiveHash + timestamp
- 03ExtractOCR, font conversion, BS dates
- 04VerifyMatch to body, ward, official
- 05PublishWith source link and read time
| Entity | Key fields | Relates to |
|---|---|---|
| Public body | name, level, district | Wards, Works |
| Ward | number, body | Officials, Works |
| Official | name, role, term, official contact | Ward |
| Work | title, value, contractor, status, dates | Ward, Documents |
| Document | source URL, type, published date | Snapshots |
| Snapshot | hash, read at, archive copy | Document |
Acceptance scenarios
- AC-01
Given a work record on a ward page, when a visitor opens it, then the official source link and the date it was read are shown.
- AC-02
Given a source site that is offline, when the record is requested, then the archived copy is served and marked "source currently unreachable".
- AC-03
Given a ward with no published budget, when a visitor opens its budget tab, then the page says "not published" and offers an RTI request template.
MVP scope
One metropolitan city, three sections (People, Works, Sources), a read-only API, and an RTI helper. Out of scope for the MVP: complaints, user accounts, rating officials, and the other 752 local governments.
Artefacts I produced
- Feasibility study
- SRS excerpt (functional and non-functional)
- Entity-relationship model
- Ingest-to-publish process model
- Acceptance scenarios
- Traceability matrix