Prime Minister Employment Program (PMEP) Nepal: How to Apply

The Prime Minister Employment Program (PMEP), known in Nepali as the Pradhanmantri Rojgar Karyakram (प्रधानमन्त्री रोजगार कार्यक्रम), is the Government of Nepal's flagship domestic employment-guarantee scheme. It was launched in fiscal year 2075/76 BS (2018/19 AD) and formally rolled out in February 2019 to give jobless Nepalis inside the country a legal claim to a minimum amount of paid work each year, or a cash allowance if that work is not provided.

The program is the operational arm of a constitutional promise. Article 33 of the Constitution of Nepal (2015) recognises the right to employment as a fundamental right, and the Right to Employment Act, 2075 (2018), together with the Right to Employment Rules (Regulation), 2075, turns that right into an enforceable entitlement administered through local governments. PMEP is the scheme through which those entitlements are actually delivered.

Crucially, this is about domestic work inside Nepal, such as community infrastructure, agriculture support and public maintenance projects at the ward and municipal level. It is completely distinct from foreign employment (the labour-permit or 'shram swikriti' process for working abroad). If your goal is to work overseas, PMEP is not the relevant scheme.

The core promise is a minimum guarantee of employment. Under the Right to Employment Act, 2075, a citizen who is registered as unemployed and holds an unemployed identity card is entitled to a minimum of about 100 days of employment in a fiscal year. The Act frames this as a right, not a favour: the state is legally obliged either to provide the work or to compensate the person.

The guarantee is delivered through local levels (municipalities and rural municipalities). Each local level is expected to identify projects, match registered jobseekers to them, and record the days of work provided. The idea, modelled loosely on India's MGNREGA rural job-guarantee, is that a minimum floor of paid work should be available close to where people live.

Because this is a statutory entitlement, the number of days, the wage and the allowance are all set by law and by the annual budget rather than being at an official's discretion. That said, actual delivery has consistently fallen short of the 100-day figure (see the criticism section below), so treat 100 days as the legal ceiling of the promise, not a guaranteed outcome. Always verify the current-year rules and figures.

Eligibility centres on being an unemployed Nepali citizen of working age who is registered in the system. Sources cite the working-age band variously as roughly 18 to 59 years, and some early materials mention 15 to 59; verify the exact age range in the current-year directives before relying on it. You must be a Nepali citizen and ordinarily resident in the local level where you register.

The scheme is targeted, not universal. Priority has been given to the most economically vulnerable, for example households that cannot meet three months of food needs, families with no employed member, and low-income households. Local officials rank and select applicants on the basis of economic need, which means registration does not by itself guarantee a placement.

There are exclusions on the allowance side. The livelihood allowance is generally not paid to people (or families) already receiving a government pension, social-security support, or regular income of the kind the Act specifies, since the allowance is meant as a safety net for those genuinely without work or support. Confirm your specific situation with your ward or Employment Service Centre.

Registration happens locally, not through a central office. You apply as an unemployed person at the ward office of the municipality or rural municipality where you live. Applications are compiled by the local Employment Service Centre (Rojgar Sewa Kendra), which every local level is expected to operate, typically coordinated by a deployed employment officer or 'Rojgar Sahayak'.

On successful registration you are entered into the Employment Management Information System (EMIS) and issued an unemployed identity card. This card is what establishes your legal claim to the 100-day minimum, and later to the allowance if no work is provided. Keep it safe and renew or re-register as required each fiscal year, because entitlements run on a fiscal-year cycle.

The registration window is usually announced annually. Take your citizenship certificate and any documents your ward requests. While the program maintains an online presence and portal, the practical, reliable route for most applicants remains registering in person at the ward or Employment Service Centre. Confirm the current portal, forms and deadlines with your local level.

The work offered is mostly community and public-works labour arranged at the local level: maintenance projects, community infrastructure, agriculture support, irrigation, drinking water, river control, forestry, roads and pathways, and similar public tasks. Placements are meant to reflect the worker's qualifications and interests, and skill or vocational training is sometimes attached, though in practice the work has often been unskilled manual labour.

Wages are paid at the government-set daily rate. When the scheme launched the daily wage was cited at about Rs 517, tied to the minimum wage of the time. Because the wage is pegged to the national minimum wage, which the government revises roughly every two years, the current figure is higher; the national minimum wage was Rs 19,550 per month (about Rs 752 per day) from mid-July 2025. Always verify the exact daily wage in force for the relevant fiscal year.

Payment is for days actually worked and is typically routed through the local level. Because placements are project-based and seasonal, many workers historically received far fewer than 100 days, which is where the unemployment allowance is supposed to fill the gap.

The distinctive feature of the Right to Employment Act, 2075 is that the guarantee is backed by cash. If a registered unemployed person is not provided the minimum employment, the state must pay an unemployment or livelihood allowance instead. The allowance is set at about 50% of the minimum wage for the guaranteed number of days.

In the early years this worked out to roughly Rs 22,417 per person per year, calculated as 50% of the then-monthly minimum wage of Rs 13,450 applied over the 100-day guarantee. That figure is now outdated: because the minimum wage has since risen to Rs 19,550 per month, the allowance amount would be correspondingly higher today. Treat Rs 22,417 as an illustrative historical figure and verify the current-year amount.

The allowance is conditional. Typically a beneficiary must be genuinely registered with an unemployed identity card, must not already receive a pension or regular support, and must accept a placement if one is offered. Someone who is assigned work under the scheme and then refuses to attend generally forfeits the allowance for those days. The allowance is a fallback for when the state fails to deliver work, not an alternative to accepting available work.

PMEP is widely regarded as having under-delivered against its promise. Independent evaluations and news reporting found that the average work actually provided was a small fraction of 100 days: roughly 13 days per person in the first year and around 18 days in later reporting, with some districts providing only a handful of days and some rural municipalities creating no work at all. In one review, a large majority of registered applicants received no work in the period examined.

Reviews by bodies such as the Office of the Auditor General and the National Planning Commission criticised the scheme for spending on low-value 'menial' tasks (cleaning roads and ditches, levelling grounds) rather than productive, investment-linked work, for weak project planning, for late budget release and low budget utilisation, and for a mismatch between workers' skills and assigned tasks. Complicated registration and low incentives also discouraged participation.

There have also been persistent complaints of political interference, with selection and project locations influenced by local political interests, and critics labelling the program 'vote-bank politics'. The allowance side has been under-funded and inconsistently paid. The 2026 restructuring that moved labour and employment functions into the new Ministry of Youth, Labour and Employment is the latest attempt to reorganise delivery; whether it improves outcomes remains to be seen. Anyone relying on PMEP should plan around the risk that promised days or allowances may not fully materialise.

Register early in the fiscal year when the window opens, keep your unemployed identity card and citizenship certificate safe, and get written acknowledgement of your registration and any placement. If you are registered and no work is offered within the fiscal year, ask your Employment Service Centre in writing about the livelihood allowance and the process to claim it.

Because figures change, treat every number on this page as needing verification against the current-year rules: the exact age band, the daily wage, the number of guaranteed days actually budgeted, and the allowance amount. The authoritative sources are the Right to Employment Act, 2075 and its Rules, the program's official channels, and your local level.

Administratively, labour and employment functions in Nepal were reorganised in 2026 under the new Ministry of Youth, Labour and Employment (formed in May 2026 by merging the youth and labour portfolios). Program branding, portals and contact points may therefore change; confirm the current official website and ward-level contact before submitting anything.