The appointment marks a significant paradigm shift, bringing one of South Asia’s most prominent regulatory and banking heavyweights into the agile UAE digital wallet and remittance landscape. As digital payment adoption hits record highs in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region, Dhungana’s transition into fintech signals a major push for scalable, compliant cross-border financial solutions.

Bridging Institutional Trust with Agile Fintech

Dhungana is uniquely qualified to steer a cross-border digital wallet initiative. His credentials in the traditional financial space are unparalleled:

• Banking Leadership: Most recently served a high-profile tenure as the CEO of Nabil Bank (Nepal’s largest private commercial bank) and spent ten years leading Nepal Bangladesh Bank as CEO.
• Central Bank & Regulatory Expertise: Spent a decade serving at the central bank, Nepal Rastra Bank, giving him deep insights into monetary frameworks, KYC compliance, and anti-money laundering (AML) protocols.
• Industry Governance: Former President of the Nepal Bankers’ Association (NBA).

A Chartered Accountant by profession with a Master’s in Financial Analysis from the University of New South Wales, Australia, Dhungana’s entry into the UAE fintech market provides myewallet with instant institutional credibility among regulators, banking partners, and users alike.

As digital wallets shift from simple peer-to-peer apps into comprehensive financial super-apps, having a veteran commercial banking strategist at the wheel provides myewallet UAE a distinct competitive edge in the evolving fintech corridor.

As the peak climbing season draws crowds of domestic and international adventurers, the region is facing mounting criticism over weak, exorbitantly priced connectivity. For climbers trying to stay in touch with family or track weather patterns, and for local expedition companies managing high-risk logistics, the digital lifeline in the Himalayas is proving to be both fragile and expensive.

The Seasonal Monopolies of the Khumbu

For years, getting online at Everest meant relying on specialized local internet service providers (ISPs) like Everest Link and Air Link. These companies provide 24-hour wireless networks at the base camp, but users say the financial toll is steep.

The service providers argue that the prices are justified. Operating a network in one of the most hostile geographic terrains on Earth requires massive capital. Infrastructure must be maintained through freezing temperatures and high winds, all for a business model that only generates revenue during a few short months of the climbing season.

Meanwhile, mainstream telecom giants like Nepal Telecom (NTC) and Ncell remain largely absent from the base camp itself. While their towers reach up to 5,100 meters, they routinely choke under the weight of peak-season traffic, leaving users with basic, unreliable connectivity during the off-season and virtually nothing when it matters most. NTC claims it is rushing to lay fiber-optic cables to Gorakshep, but for now, the base camp remains a digital island.

The Underground Network: Safety vs. The Law

The real crisis begins above the base camp. As climbers push higher into Death Zone territory, local networks completely vanish. In this communication vacuum, a shadow network has emerged.

Faced with a choice between regulatory compliance and human lives, major expedition companies have quietly deployed foreign satellite internet terminals. Industry insiders estimate that roughly 53 unauthorized satellite devices are currently active in the Everest region, providing critical data links high on the mountain.

To the climbers, these illegal terminals are a literal lifeline—essential for calling in helicopter evacuations, coordinating rescues, and tracking missing team members. But to the government, they are a legal violation.

The Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) previously issued a stern warning against this practice, declaring that the use of foreign satellite systems violates the country’s Telecommunications Act. Yet, in a region where a dropped connection can mean the difference between life and death, the state’s warnings have largely been ignored by operators who prioritize safety over bureaucracy.

Broken Promises in the Clouds

The rise of this black-market internet highlights a broader failure in infrastructure development. Years ago, the NTA proudly announced a flagship campaign to provide free wireless internet at both the Everest and Annapurna Base Camps. Today, stakeholders on the ground say that initiative has been an utter failure, leaving a trail of broken promises and unfulfilled expectations.

Regulators admit they are struggling to police the roof of the world. While the NTA claims it is actively investigating overcharging and illegal satellite use, officials concede that the brutal terrain makes physical monitoring and enforcement nearly impossible.

Until local providers can reliably bridge the gap between high costs and high altitudes, Everest’s digital underground will likely keep running—proving that in the world’s highest peaks, connectivity is no longer a luxury, but a necessity worth breaking the rules for.

The Department of Transport Management (DoTM) issued an official circular to the ministries of Physical Infrastructure, Labour, and Transport Management across all seven provinces, as well as all local government units, ordering an immediate halt to processing new public transit permits.

Remarkably, the freeze is total: it includes not only traditional fossil-fuel-powered buses and microbuses but also electric public transport vehicles (EVs)

Why the Sudden Brake?

According to the official directive signed by DoTM Director Mani Ram Bhusal, the government was forced to step in due to a critical convergence of environmental, logistical, and structural failures across Nepal’s urban networks. The department highlighted four pressing catalysts for the freeze:

Severe Traffic Congestion: The sheer density of public vehicles operating without systemic planning has heavily choked major roadways, creating paralyzing gridlocks and crippling urban mobility.

Infrastructure & Capacity Constraints: The rate of road expansion has failed to keep pace with the chaotic influx of commercial public vehicles, overstretching the limits of existing asphalt.

Fuel Cost Pressures: Rising international fuel costs have added unprecedented operational and economic friction to the public transit ecosystem, complicating standard fare structures and driver sustainability.

Weaponizing the 1993 Transport Act

To enforce this absolute freeze, the DoTM invoked Section 24(3) of the Motor Vehicles and Transport Management Act, 1993 (2049 BS).

The Legal Framework: Section 24(3) legally empowers the central transport department to restrict or completely halt vehicle registrations if it is deemed in the absolute interest of public welfare. The law explicitly allows such interventions when triggered by severe environmental pollution, road capacity limitations, or widespread transit management difficulties.

By deploying this specific legal guardrail, the federal government has effectively bypassed standard local transport syndicate expansions to force a hard reset on how transit routes are allocated.

The EV Controversy: Clean Energy Caught in the Crossfire

The decision to include electric public vehicles (EVs) in the blanket ban has already ignited fierce debate among urban planners and climate advocates.

While the Nepali government has actively promoted EV adoption over recent years to cut down on petroleum dependency and tailpipe emissions, transport officials clarified that clean energy does not solve physical gridlock. An electric bus occupies the exact same physical space as a diesel bus in a traffic jam, meaning the unscientific over-saturation of routes remains a hazard regardless of the vehicle’s fuel source.

What Happens Next? A Shift Toward “Scientific Management”

The DoTM has made it clear that no new public vehicle registrations will be processed until an official, revised directive is formulated.

This freeze acts as a mandatory timeout while the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport reviews a massive tech-driven overhaul. The government recently finalized draft guidelines aimed at creating a “scientific, tech-equipped public transport system.”

Once the freeze is lifted, any new or existing public vehicle permitted on the roads will likely be legally required to feature:

Mandatory central GPS tracking systems.

Continuous CCTV camera monitoring to prevent passenger harassment.

AI-based facial recognition to automate passenger counts.

Compulsory digital ticketing and QR code scanning to eliminate unregulated cash handling.

Until these stringent technical baselines and rigorous route-mapping systems are institutionalized across the provinces, the gates to Nepal’s public transport registry will remain firmly shut.

If you glance at the latest mid-May data released by the Public Debt Management Office (PDMO), Nepal’s public debt-to-GDP ratio appears to have miraculously dropped from a dangerous 48.04% in April down to a highly respectable 45.08%.

But don’t let the charts deceive you: the government didn’t settle its tabs or pay off its lenders. Instead, the National Statistics Office simply adjusted the nation’s annual GDP estimates upward. By artificially inflating the baseline size of the economy (the mathematical denominator), the government made its soaring liabilities look smaller on paper.

The harsh, cash-in-hand truth? Nepal’s real public debt has surged to an unprecedented Rs 2,975.04 billion—putting the nation just inches away from crossing the staggering Rs 3 trillion threshold. Over the last ten months, the government has been packing on an average of Rs 30 billion in fresh debt every single month just to stay solvent.

Cannibalizing Local Credit: The Domestic Squeeze

Perhaps the most telling sign of Nepal’s internal fragility is where this new money is being sourced.

The state originally planned to raise a total of Rs 595.66 billion in loans for the fiscal year. So far, they have secured 61.30% of that goal (Rs 365.16 billion). However, the composition of this capital reveals a deeply troubling trend:

Domestic Borrowing: The state has already aggressively drained 82.50% (Rs 298.67 billion) of its entire annual internal target.

External Borrowing: In sharp contrast, international funds from foreign lenders have slowed to a crawl, hitting a mere 28.46% (Rs 66.49 billion) of the target.

Because complex bureaucratic delays prevent the state from hitting the construction milestones required to unlock foreign aid, the government has turned inward. Local commercial banks are being systematically drained of liquidity through Treasury bills and development bonds to fund day-to-day bureaucratic operations. This relentless domestic push directly “crowds out” the private sector, starving small businesses and local industries of the credit they need to scale up and generate employment.

The Exchange Rate Penalty: Paying Billions for Thin Air

Nepal’s growing debt crisis isn’t just a byproduct of over-borrowing—it is also being heavily driven by global currency volatility.

The Exchange Loss Fact: Over the course of the fiscal year, the Nepali Rupee plummeted from roughly Rs 137 per US dollar in mid-July 2025 to historic lows of nearly Rs 150 per dollar by May.

Because over 70% of Nepal’s external debt is denominated in Special Drawing Rights (SDR) and another 20% is held in US Dollars, the rapid devaluation of the rupee has wreaked havoc on the balance sheet. Without receiving a single new dollar to pave a highway or construct a power line, currency depreciation alone automatically tacked an unprompted Rs 115.75 billion in pure exchange rate losses onto our international liabilities earlier this quarter.

The Servicing Cycle: A Treasury Chasing its Own Tail

To understand how close the country is to a genuine debt trap, one only needs to look at where the cash goes once it’s raised.

Over the last ten months, the government has funneled Rs 258.44 billion straight back out of the treasury to handle debt servicing—repaying principal and interest on older loans. This massive cash drainage consumes 4.23% of Nepal’s entire GDP.

The state is effectively trapped in a vicious cycle: it is issuing massive amounts of high-interest internal bonds today simply to pay back the maturing debts of yesterday. Meanwhile, capital expenditure—the actual money spent on infrastructure that drives real, long-term economic growth—remains chronically neglected, with less than a quarter of the development budget actually deployed by the spring.

With state oversight bodies like the National Natural Resources and Fiscal Commission (NNRFC) loudly calling for an absolute ban on using domestic loans to cover recurrent government costs, the upcoming federal budget will be a definitive test. If the state continues to use long-term debt as a revolving credit card to fund its administrative machinery, the Rs 3 trillion milestone won’t just be an alarming statistic—it will be the moment the trap door firmly locks.

A total of 274 climbers successfully stood on the summit on Wednesday, May 20, 2026. This represents the single busiest, most heavily congested day on the mountain’s southern ridge in history, smashing the previous Nepal-side single-day record of 223 ascents set back in May 2019.

Inside the Perfect Storm: Why Everyone Climbed at Once

The historic bottleneck on May 20 was not an accident of scheduling; it was the direct result of a major environmental delay.

Earlier in May, high-altitude workers known as “icefall doctors” were forced to halt operations to clear a massive, unstable block of glacial ice (a serac) that completely obstructed the Khumbu Icefall route. Consequently, the path from Camp II to the summit was not fully opened and rope-fixed until May 13.

This operational delay created a massive, anxious backlog of hundreds of climbers waiting at Base Camp. When weather forecasts indicated a brief, flawless window of clear skies on Wednesday—followed by heavy winds predicted for later in the week—it triggered an immediate, synchronized rush toward the peak.

THE MAY 20 SUMMIT BREAKDOWN (274 Total)
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ ■ High-Altitude Sherpa Guides: 150 (54.7%) │
│ □ Foreign Expedition Clients: 124 (45.3%)

This immense convergence meant that 124 foreign clients and 150 local Sherpa guides were forced to squeeze through the narrow, exposed ridges of the “Death Zone” simultaneously.

Everest’s Triple Record: Permits, Revenue, and Crowds

The Department of Tourism has confirmed that the 2026 spring season has effectively transformed Everest into a massive economic engine, setting three structural records:

Permit Peak: Nepal issued an all-time high of 495 individual climbing permits to foreigners across 55 different nations. China led the demographic footprint with 109 climbers, followed closely by the United States (77) and India (61).

The Royalty Windfall: With foreign climbers paying a revised royalty fee of $15,000 each under updated government structures, Everest alone generated Rs 1.07 billion (approx. $7.2 million USD) in state revenue.

The Single-Day Peak: The resulting 274 individual summits on Wednesday officially crown this season as the most concentrated mass ascension on record.

The Masters of the Mountain Extend Their Reign

Amid the mass of commercial expeditions, the world’s most elite high-altitude guides used the mid-May window to stretch their own global boundaries.

Kami Rita Sherpa: The 32nd Ascent

On Sunday, May 17, 2026, at precisely 10:12 AM, 56-year-old Kami Rita Sherpa stood on the peak for an unbelievable 32nd time. Leading an expedition for 14 Peaks Expedition, the Thame native extended his own world record for the most individual ascents of Mount Everest, a journey he began more than three decades ago in 1994.

Lhakpa Sherpa: The Mountain Queen Reaches 11

On that very same historic Sunday morning, veteran female climber Lhakpa Sherpa successfully scaled the peak at 9:30 AM. Her successful ascent marks her 11th time atop Everest, extending her unbreakable world record for the most summits achieved by a woman.

Pure Human Endurance Milestones

• The No-Oxygen Feat: Standing out dramatically within the crowded Wednesday wave, Ecuadorian climber Marcelo Segovia completed a legendary “clean” ascent, reaching the 8,848.86-metre peak entirely without the use of supplemental oxygen or guide support.
• The Youth Milestone: 18-year-old Australian climber Bianca Adler also summited during the mass push on Wednesday, officially becoming the youngest Australian in history to stand on top of the world.

The Reality of the “Death Zone”

While the economic revenue and individual triumphs are being celebrated in Kathmandu, mountaineering experts warn that the 2026 season highlights an escalating hazard.

Compressing nearly 300 people onto a single rope track above 8,000 metres forces climbers to wait in stationary queues for hours. At that altitude, supplemental oxygen bottles deplete rapidly, and the human body undergoes severe, unrecoverable deterioration.

With base camps beginning to clear out as the brief May weather window shuts, the legacy of the Spring 2026 season will likely be defined by a crucial question: How long can human traffic engineering hold out against the volatile climate of the world’s highest peak?