Updates

We correct in the open. When a figure changes after publication — because a primary source has since appeared, a number has been checked back against the original, or a framing needed sharpening — it is recorded here, with the source that settled it. Spotted something yourself? See Corrections.

May 2026

The proposed electricity tariff. The Low Voltage rate proposed in the Bhutan Power Corporation’s 2025–2028 tariff application is an unsubsidised Nu 5.73 per unit — roughly +115% over the current Nu 2.66. The application has been referred back to the Electricity Regulatory Authority on affordability grounds; no final determination has been issued, and the current Nu 2.66 rate remains in force. Earlier wording on these pages put the proposed figure at Nu 5.63 (+112%); it was corrected against the application itself. (Paradoxes #56 and #64.)

Bhutanese living abroad. The total is given throughout as approximately 77,000 — close to one in ten citizens — reconciled across census migration data, Australian Bureau of Statistics figures, embassy-registration counts, and second-country visa data. The strictly registered count is lower, near 43,000. (Paradox #48.)

Audit irregularities. The FY 2024–25 figure is led by its concentration: roughly 78 percent of the total sits in a single mega-project, Punatsangchhu-II hydropower. Set that one item aside and the underlying trend is about five times its 2017 level, not twenty-five. Bhutan remains the least-corrupt country in South Asia. (Paradox #40.)

Two civil-service clarifications. The 2023 figure of 5,202 separations is the calendar-year count; the fiscal-year 2022–23 count is about 4,822 — the gap is the reporting window, not a contradiction. And the “21×” figure for civil-service aspiration is a relative odds ratio, not an absolute unemployment rate. (Paradoxes #20 and #46.)