Different ministries have once again failed to heed the Finance
Ministry’s call to start spending the capital budget on time as very few
have so far forwarded project proposals for approval at the National
Planning Commission (NPC), the apex body that formulates country’s
development plans.During a meeting held on July 16, the Finance Ministry had asked all ministries to get their Priority One (P1) projects approved by NPC by Tuesday. “But apart from a few ministries like finance, industry and communications, others have not forwarded their proposals for approval,” NPC joint secretary
Gopi Nath Mainali told The Himalayan Times, adding, “Proposals that we have received
so far do not even make up 15 per cent of the total Priority One projects undertaken by the government this year.”
Of the total 452 projects approved by the government for this fiscal year, 301 are categorised as P1. As per the rule, Priority One projects need to be
approved by NPC prior to their implementation.
P1 projects generally comprise big development projects which consume a large portion of the budget allocated for capital spending. They also have the ability to generate hundreds of thousands of job opportunities.
On the contrary, delay in capital spending affects money supply in the banking sector as the government is the biggest spender in the country. This ultimately affects the liquidity position of banks and financial institutions as in the last fiscal year.
Because of these reasons the government always pushes different ministries to implement P1 projects on time so that it can meet its development targets and give a boost to the economy.
But the delay made by ministries in forwarding proposals for approval has once again created doubts about timely utilisation of this fiscal year’s capital budget of Rs 85.10 billion.
“We want ministries like education and physical planning to get their projects approved as they use up a huge portion of the capital budget,” Mainali said.
Nepal has a long history of delaying capital spending and usually till the first half of the fiscal year only a minuscule amount is utilised. In the last fiscal year, only Rs 7.7 billion of Rs 66.1 billion allocated for capital spending was used in the first six months. It was the same in the previous year too.
“Keeping this in mind, we are planning to officially instruct different ministries to get their projects approved soon,” NPC joint secretary Pushpa Shakya said.
Src THT
