By Indira Aryal

Kathmandu, Jan. 3: Anyone who reaches the Office of the Company Registrar, Tripureshwore Kathmandu, seeking service is greeted first by middlemen or brokers.
When this reporter reached the office at 9:30 am Thursday, two middlemen asked whether they could help.
They approach the service seekers in the name of helping them with registration process. However, the middlemen said they were sent by different law firms to help the service seekers.
Middlemen were seen everywhere right from the entrance of the building to the local teashops in the vicinity of the office compound. These middlemen normally charge Rs. 8000 or above for their help to the service seekers.
“We charge at least Rs. 8,000 and the fee will be higher depending on the size of the supporting documents,” said a middleman who said he was from Equal Law Firm of Surya Binayak, Bhaktapur.
He further said they locked their office and arrived at the Company Registrar Office before 10 every office day. These middlemen seemed to have known every employee working in the office as well as the service seekers.
Some 100 people visit the office on daily basis to register their companies. But small and congested office compound and poorly managed work places confuse the service seekers.
A group of people were seen standing outside the office building after getting confused. The windows of the office were filled with alphabets posters to provide service in the sequences, but most of the windows remained closed in the office opening hours at 10:00 am.
One of the service seekers from Chitwan said he was depressed to watch how the government officers treated him. It took him almost one week just to renew his company.
Even an advocate faced such hardship to pass his registration document. Advocated Tej Sharma said that renewing his company every year was like winning a battle of Waterloo.
The office rooms were filled with scattered documents and files, which clearly indicates the mismanagement and poor archiving system. The officials claimed the documents were scattered in room as they were entering the data into computer. The mess and mismanagement the service seekers see in the office send a bad impression on them.
When asked about the mismanagement and middlemen problem in the office to the Registrar Bhuwanhari Aryal, he said that almost 90 per cent of the company owners do not visit the office themselves and send their representatives with authorization letter.
“Their representatives seek help from the middlemen, and this leads to unnecessary crowd in the office,” Aryal said.
According to him, 228,000 companies were registered as of Wednesday. Of them, 28,000 companies were registered in the fiscal year 2018/19
The office started online service since 2014 but they were unable to provide online services fully. Those who registered online should also bring hard copy with them to the office, Aryal informed.
The Registrar office has expanded its branches in Butwal and Ithari. They are also planning to reach all the States soon. For this, they have presented a proposal to the Finance Ministry, once the Ministry approves the proposal all the states will have the Registrar office, Aryal said.
Ram Prasad Dhakal, acting-registrar, said that around 100 companies would get registration every day. For the renew process, only a few companies come on time, otherwise they have to pay fines, Dhakal informed.
Over Rs.390 million of revenue was collected within the last five and a half months, Dhakal said. Lack of sufficient staff members and infrastructures are the main reason for the service receivers complaining about the office, he added.
The office has a quota for five under-secretaries, but only three are now available. Likewise, of the total quota of 14 section officers, only eight are deployed, Aryal said.
The Registrar Office is even not disabled and gender friendly. There is no one to manage the queue of the service seekers, anyone can stand anywhere and asks for their work to be done. If anyone knew officials working inside the office his work would be done immediately, complained the service seekers.