Nepal, Sept. 18 -- A secretary-level meeting chaired by Chief Secretary Eknarayan Aryal on Tuesday decided to send a proposal to the Cabinet to lay off 20 percent of government employees, nearly 10,000 staff. But officials themselves doubt the decision will actually be implemented.

This is not the first attempt to trim down the bureaucracy. Several previous governments have announced staff reductions, including in budget speeches, yet none were carried out. Instead, ministries have repeatedly increased the number of central employees through Organization and Management (O&M) surveys.

During the previous KP Sharma Oli government, a 10 percent staff layoff was announced in the budget speech, but ministries showed no interest in implementi...