Kathmandu – Since Tuesday, the Chairman of the Securities Board of Nepal (SEBON), Santosh Narayan Shrestha, along with the Executive Director and Deputy Director, have been kept under the control of the employees’ union, bringing all board activities to a halt.

Key services such as rights share approvals, IPO applications, and bonus share registrations have been suspended indefinitely. It remains uncertain when normal operations will resume.

The SEBON Employees’ Union and the Independent Employees’ Organization jointly locked the board’s offices in protest. The unions launched this strike against three decisions made by the Ministry of Finance at the secretary level.

One decision ordered the cancellation of two employee funds currently operating at the board. The Employee Welfare Fund and the Employee Security Fund. These funds have been used to provide retirement benefits and annual payouts to staff, with each employee receiving between NPR 150,000 to NPR 250,000 annually depending on service length. With the cancellation, these benefits will stop, which sparked the employees’ opposition.

Union Chairman Ajay Dhungana said, “The board is supposed to be an autonomous body, but the ministry tried to bring it under its control through secretary-level decisions. Our protest is against this.” Employees have also demanded the resignation of Chairman Shrestha, accusing him of failing to defend staff interests with the ministry.

The ministry’s second decision has further fueled anger. It instructed the board to recover previously disbursed amounts from these funds. Some employees who have worked for 30 years have already received about NPR 6 million in extra benefits. Retired staff are also being asked to return their payments, which employees say is impossible.

“This is unrealistic. Even if we sell everything we own, we cannot repay this money,” Dhungana said.

These ministry directives, according to the employees, are the reason behind the current lockout and total disruption of SEBON’s operations.