February 13: Admitting that the country’s economy is under pressure, the government has opted for a middle path to curb expenses by not proposing any new programmes and projects that create additional economic burden to the state coffers in the current fiscal year.    
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Bishnu Prasad Poudel presented the half-yearly review of budget for the fiscal year 2022/23 in meeting of the House of Representatives on Sunday where he mentioned that no new project would be unveiled for the cause of public expenditure management. He also said the programmes that are still waiting approval for their standards, procedures, guidelines and operational models would be completely or partially postponed for now and would be gradually released based on the availability of resources.    
Likewise, the concerned ministries should take an approval from the finance ministry if the programmes are not taken to the implementation phase. However, the ministries can adjust the resources internally by fixing the priorities of budget and programmes. The unspent budget should be reverted to the finance ministry as per the Fiscal Procedures and Financial Responsibility Act, 2076 BS.    
Finance Minister Poudel has said that coordination and information exchange would be made effective among the bodies involved in the revenue leakage control, and whosoever is involved in the revenue leakage would be booked. -- RSS