I am just introducing the term “Policy Patching” which is not the patch management policy that we apply in security policy update and software bug fixing, here this term is more related to fixing issues of public policy against its implementation hurdles. For the development of a country and the society, first politics matters then policy matters. In the context of developing countries like Nepal, any kind of policy formulation/promulgation is not a big deal rather its implementation is a major issues. Especially in ICT policies, we need to identify the root cause about why it happens. Policies are developed, approved, published and entered into implementation phase according to public policy life-cycle. Once a policy is formulated, then its implementation and evaluation is the major part whether the policies outlined are perfectly implemented and the outcomes are achieved as per expectations. Most of the developing countries in south Asia, a kind of collaborative research on policy life cycle is required where we need to find out the cause about why the policy implementation is difficult and meeting of expectations are not achievable. So far the Nepalese context, the promulgated ICT & broadband policy clearly envisioned certain ambitious targets while its implementation and meeting those targets are highly challenging. It seems that the basic research and root cause analysis part was missing where national infrastructure readiness status, literacy rate, investment, government subsidy, harmonizing with other policies like energy policy, transportation policy, etc. are to be bench-marked during its development.
