Securities Board of Nepal Appoints New Chairman Dr. Gopal Bhatta

Kathmandu. After almost 2 months, the Securities Board of Nepal has got a new leadership. Dr. Gopal Bhatta has been appointed as the chairman on Friday for the post of chairman which was vacant after the then chairman Santoshnarayan Shrestha resigned on Baisakh 4.

Along with Shrestha's resignation, the council of ministers formed a committee under the leadership of National Planning Commission Vice Chairman Gunakar Bhatta at the meeting held on Baisakh 8. The members of the committee were Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, Nepal, Ghanashyam Upadhyay and expert member Bhuvan Dahal.

Nepal Securities Board Chairman Bhatta Appointed

47 people had applied for the application called by the committee. However, he resigned after Gopal Bhatta, a relative of the coordinator Gunakar Bhatta, was also included in the application.

After that, National Planning Commission member Dr. Sanjay Acharya got the responsibility of coordination. The committee had shortlisted 4 names. Those shortlisted included Gopal Bhatta, Dr. Navraj Adhikari, Binaydev Acharya, and Mukunda Chhetri.

Among them, the committee included Chhetri, Bhatta, and Acharya. The Council of Ministers decided to make him the chairman. His tenure will be until Mangsir 9, 2085. The previous chairman Santoshnarayan Shrestha was appointed on Mangsir 10, 2081. As he resigned before his term ended, Bhatta has been appointed for the remaining tenure.

Who is Bhatta?

Gopal Bhatta is an expert in the banking sector and a former executive director of Nepal Rastra Bank. He was also known as an expert in the capital market. Newly appointed Chairman Bhatta, a permanent resident of Kailali, has also completed his doctorate on the effectiveness of Nepal's capital market.

After retiring from the post due to a 30-year service period, he also became a director of Nepal SBI Bank. While at Rastra Bank, he worked in departments including economic research, bank supervision, national debt, financial management, human resources, and finance company supervision.

Bhatta had been applying for the Securities Board for the last few applications. However, his name could not even make it to the final list. The government has given this opportunity to him who had applied.

Bhatta has the responsibility to resolve the irregularities that some previous leaderships had invited to the board. Especially, the chairmen of the board have been controversial since the tenure of Bhishma Raj Dhungana. The appointments and working styles of Ramesh Hamal and Santoshnarayan Shrestha were not free from controversy when Dhungana had to resign before completing his term.

Currently, there is an IPO pipeline of more than 90 billion rupees in the board. However, it has not been approved. But, the board leadership has also been accused of approving some IPOs without completing the process.

On the other hand, the examples of scams such as approving IPOs at a premium price in the name of book building and insider trading in the capital market have also been shown by the latest action process and prosecution status.

Besides this, the compulsion to increase its capacity, access, and acceptability to make the capital market technology-friendly and international-standard has also fallen on his shoulders.