Nepal's Diploma Engineering Council Bill tabled in the House

A new bill would create a separate council to register and regulate diploma-level engineering technicians, with a code of ethics and competence rules.

Imperial College of Engineering news deskSource dated 29 Sep 2026 · 4 min read · 5 sourcesBCE BCT BEI

Nepal's Physical Infrastructure and Development Minister Sunil Lamsal tabled the Diploma Engineering Council Bill, 2083, in the House of Representatives on 29 September 2026, Nagarik News reported. The bill would set up a separate council to register diploma engineering technicians, regulate their competence and enforce a code of ethics. Bachelor-level engineers are already licensed by the Nepal Engineering Council.

1999year the Nepal Engineering Council was formed
2022year a licensing exam became mandatory for NEC registration
Rule 105House regulation under which the bill was tabled without objection
6main functions of the proposed council listed in the bill reports

What happened

The bill was presented at the Tuesday meeting of the House. Speaker Dol Prasad Aryal gave the minister permission to table it after no member filed an objection. Epardafas reported that this followed Rule 105 of the House of Representatives Regulation, 2083. Khabarhub reported that the same meeting also received a National Defence University Bill and a committee report on a Forensic Laboratory Bill, so the engineering bill was one item on a busy agenda.

According to Nagarik News, the government said the bill aims to make the diploma engineering profession organised, scientific, quality-driven, dignified and transparent. The minister said a law was needed to bring order to the profession. Epardafas reported that he also described the council as needed for accountability, quality and transparency in the diploma engineering sector.

The reported provisions are short. The bill would establish and run a Diploma Engineering Council. The council would register diploma engineering technicians according to their qualification and subject. It would set and maintain standards of professional responsibility and quality, enforce and monitor a code of ethics, regulate professional competence, and keep a record of practitioners. The news reports do not describe who would sit on the council or what penalties it could apply.

The engineering behind it

Professional regulation is part of engineering practice, even though it is written in law. Its purpose is to make sure that the person who designs, checks or supervises work is qualified for it. A council usually does this through a few connected tools: a register of who is qualified, rules on what each category may do, a code of ethics, and a process for complaints and discipline. These are general features of engineering councils, not details of this bill.

Registration by qualification and subject, which the bill provides for, matters because engineering work is divided by field. A technician trained in civil works is not trained to approve electrical installations, and the reverse is also true. A register that records the subject of each person allows employers and the public to check whether someone is working inside their field.

Regulating competence is harder than registering certificates. A certificate shows that a person passed a course at one point in time. Competence also depends on experience and on keeping up with new codes and methods. Many councils in the world deal with this through exams, supervised practice or continuing professional development. The news reports do not say which of these methods the new council would use.

What it means in Nepal

Bachelor-level engineers in Nepal are already regulated by the Nepal Engineering Council (NEC). The NEC says it was formed on 11 March 1999 under the Nepal Engineering Council Act. Its stated role is to organise the engineering profession in a systematic and scientific way and to register engineers according to their qualifications. Its website lists general engineer registration, professional engineer registration, foreign engineer registration and recognition of institutions.

Until 2022, the NEC registered engineers on the basis of their academic certificates. An amendment bill registered in parliament in June 2019 passed in August 2022, and it made passing the council's exam necessary to obtain a licence. A bachelor graduate in civil, computer or electronics engineering therefore needs to pass that exam before practising as a registered engineer.

If the new bill becomes law, Nepal would have two engineering councils, one for bachelor-level engineers and one for diploma-level technicians. Parliament will now discuss the bill clause by clause and can amend it. The detail that will matter most is how the scopes of the two councils are defined, so that each kind of practitioner knows which work they may sign and which they may not.

What to study if this interests you

Professional and Social Engineering, ENCE 355, in the sixth semester of BCE, has chapters on ethics and professionalism and on engineering practice and its legal framework. Those chapters cover the same ground as this bill: who may practise, under what rules, and with what duties to the public. It is the course where the law around engineering is taught directly.

BCT and BEI students meet related questions in Energy, Environment and Social Engineering, which is ENEX 417 in the seventh semester of BCT and ENEX 463 in the eighth semester of BEI. Both programmes also lead to the NEC licensing exam after graduation, so the rules discussed in this story apply to them as well.

Words in this story

Diploma engineering technician: A person trained in engineering at diploma level, below a bachelor's degree, often called a sub-engineer in Nepal.
Professional council: A legal body that registers practitioners of a profession and sets the rules they must follow.
Code of ethics: A written set of duties that members of a profession must follow toward the public, clients and each other.
Tabling a bill: Formally presenting a proposed law to parliament so that it can be discussed and voted on.

Where this comes from

The news itself rests on one source; any other link is background or from the same publisher. Written in our own words; no sentence is copied from these reports. Researched with AI assistance on 11 October 2026; no member of faculty has reviewed it yet. If you spot a mistake, call 01-5091616 and we will correct it and say so.