February 20: In the first six months of the current FY 2016/17, the Government ran a surplus of Rs 80.37 billion in its budget, as per the current macroeconomic and financial situation of Nepal published by Nepal Rastra Bank on February 17. Such surplus was Rs 28.93 billion in the corresponding period of the previous  FY. Because of a slow pace of government expenditure relative to resource mobilization, the government accumulated budget surplus during the review period.

The budget surplus is not a positive indicator to pace the economy and economical growth through employment generation, said economists. "However, Nepal has been getting surplus budget since long time due to incapable of spending the allocated amount," said Daya Ram Pandey, Prof of Economic, Tribhuvan University adding "Then how will the economy can achieve desired growth rate." The statistics clearly shows that the weak capital investment and significantly increased revenue has unbalanced the whole financial system, he opined. He voiced that the economic activities should be significantly and continuously carried out for prosperous economy.    

On the collection of considerable revenue, the government should increase its spending on projects providing sustainable achievement, Pandey stated.  In the review period, the government's total expenditure increased by 55.7 per cent to Rs 248 billion as per the statistics. The expenditure was Rs 159 billion during the corresponding period of the last FY. The government through the budget of the current FY raised remuneration of government employees and social allowances resulting increase in total expenditure of the government.

However, the capital expenditure of the government could not increase as expected besides announcing the budget one and a half months earlier than the previous year.

The government has spent Rs 248.20 billion from the total allocated budget of Rs 1048.90 billion of the current FY in the review period. In the total spent amount, Rs 196 billion has been spent on current expenditure; Rs 30.97 billion has been spent on capital expenditure and Rs 20.76 billion on financial expenditure.  Compare to allocated budget, the current, capital and financial expenditure is of 31.83, 9.93 and 17.33 per cent respectively.