January 26: Budget spent for the national pride projects, which are considered as transformative projects with strategic significance, is found to be negligible.    
The mid-term review of the ongoing fiscal year’s budget has shown the progress in national pride projects is off the mark. The records maintained by Financial Comptroller General Office (FCGO) revealed that the total budget spent by the government was 32 percent as of January 14. Out of this, 38 percent was spent under current expenditure while 14 percent was under capital expenditure, and 29.44 percent financial management.

Only 23 percent budget was spent in the national pride projects till the mid-term review, the FCGO added.    

The national pride projects were allocated a total of Rs 97 billion budget in the current fiscal year, but the progress is not satisfactory. The NPPs including the Millennium Challenge Account Nepal, South Asia Tourism Infrastructure Development Project, Kathmandu-Tarai Expressway, Pokhara Regional International Airport saw less than 5 percent expenditure till mid-January.    
Newly appointed Vice Chair of the National Planning Commission, Dr Min Bahadur Shrestha, informed that the problem of low spending surfaced because the national pride projects were forwarded simultaneously.

“There is resource crunch if all projects are taken together. Our contractors lack capacity. Oversight mechanism including bureaucracy is not able to work for it. So, certain projects should be prioritized and forwarded,” he observed.    

Out of the budget allocated for the Millennium Challenge Account Nepal, it spent only 0.43 percent. Similarly, Kathmandu-Tarai Expressway was able to use only 5.13 percent (Rs 1.59 billion) by the mid-term. The South Asia Tourism Infrastructure was not able to spend more than 3.23 percent out of annual budget of Rs 2.20 billion. -- RSS